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GUILT    OF    SLAVERY 


AND     THE 


CRIME  OF  SLAHEHOLDI8G. 


DEMONSTRATED     FROM     THE 


HEBREW    AND    GREEK    SCRIPTURES 


BY 

REV.  GEORGE  B..CHEEVER,  D.D., 

PASTOR  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

AUTHOR  OF   "  LECTURES   ON   THE   PILGRIM'S   PROGRESS,"  "  WANDERINGS  OP  A  PILGRIM," 

"WINDINGS   OF   THE  BIVER   OP   THE  WATER   OF   LIFE,"   "VOICES   OP  NATURE," 

"POWEBS  OP  THE  WORLD  TO  COME,"  "GOD  AGAINST  SLAVEBY,"  ETC. 


BOSTON: 

JOHN    P.    JEWETT    &    COMPANY, 
No.    20    WASHINGTON    STREET. 

1860. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1860,  by 

GEORGE   B.    CHEEVEE, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


STEREOTYPED    BT 

SMITH    &    McDOUQAL, 

84  Beekman-st,  N.Y. 


DEDICATION  AND  PREFACE. 


I  DEDICATE  this  volume  to  REV.  WM.  G-.  SCHATJFFLER,  D.  D.;  of  Con- 
stantinople, who  expressed  to  me,  in  his  last  visit  to  this  country,  hia 
conviction  of  the  truth  and  accuracy  of  the  views  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  presented  by  me  in  the  BDBLIOTHECA  SACRA,  and  now  embodied 
in  the  present  work.  I  know  the  feelings  of  abhorrence  and  of  anguish 
in  the  hearts  of  some  of  our  missionaries  abroad,  in  regard  to  the  prev- 
alence of  this  gigantic  sin.  They  dare  not  let  the  heathen  know  that 
such  an  iniquity  is  tolerated  by  Christians ;  much  less,  that  the  very 
Missionary  Boards  that  send  the  gospel  abroad  maintain  and  sanction, 
in  any  of  the  churches  at  home,  such  a  violation  of  all  its  precepts. 

May  the  Lord  God  bring  speedily  the  time  when  the  churches  and 
the  ministry,  at  home  and  abroad,  shall  unite  in  the  condemnation  and 
removal  of  this  monstrous  abomination ! 


The  slaveholding  tyranny  established  in  this  country  over  the  blacks 
has  rapidly  ripened  into  a  despotism  full  blown,  with  all  the  arts  and 
terrors  of  proscription  against  even  the  free  whites,  who  prefer  liberty 
to  slavery,  and  dare  express  an  independent  opinion,  or  maintain  an  in- 
dependent spirit.  The  masters  and  managers  of  this  despotism,  defy- 
ing all  the  fundamental  principles  of  jurisprudence,  as  well  as  of  revealed 


IV  DEDICATION  AND  PREFACE. 

religion,  have  set  up  slavery  even  on  the  throne  of  Justice,  confounding 
and  concentrating,  out  of  the  maxims  and  prejudices  of  past  wicked- 
ness and  darkness,  the  present  rule  of  slaveholding  piety  and  policy, 
that  Hack  men  have  no  rights  that  white  men  are  bound  to  respect.  They 
are,  as  ME.  COLERIDGE  did  not  hesitate  to  designate  them,  A  LEGALIZED 
BANDITTI  OF  MEN-STEALERS,  and  they  are  ready  to  hang  at  the  nearest 
lamp-post  all  who  resist  or  even  disavow  the  laws  of  their  brotherhood. 
But,  as  EDMUXD  BURKE  said  of  the  leaders  of  the  French  Reign  of 
Terror,  "  Their  tyranny  is  complete  in  their  justice,  and  their  lanterne 
is  not  half  so  dreadful  as  their  court." 

Their  religion  is  still  worse  than  either,  being  a  perversion  of  the 
gospel  of  love  into  a  law  of  malignity  and  cruelty,  so  that  every  virtu- 
ous and  honest  man  must,  by  the  necessity  of  truth  and  conscience,  be 
an  unbeliever,  and  only  a  depraved  heart  could  receive  such  a  pre- 
tended revelation.  It  is  the  conviction  of  the  impossibility  of  a  divine 
revelation  sanctioning  so  diabolical  a  cruelty  and  crime  as  that  of  human 
slavery,  that  has  led  to  the  preparation  of  this  volume,  in  every  part  of 
which  I  have  adhered  to  the  logic  of  God's  word,  and  while  dealing 
with  the  original  have  made  the  argument  plain  and  simple  to  the  Eng- 
lish reader. 

The  ground  studies  of  the  work,  so  far  as  the  Old  Testament  is  con- 
cerned, were  published  in  several  successive  numbers  of  the  BIBLIO- 
THECA  SACRA,  in  the  years  185-5  and  1856.  Out  of  the  intolerable 
pressure  of  the  accusation  that  the  Old  Testament  sanctioned  slavery, 
the  investigation  was  begun,  and  has  been  continued ;  the  result  is  the 
demonstration  in  this  volume,  which,  being  drawn  from  God's  word, 
we  fear  not  to  challenge  the  overthrow  of  it  by  the  defenders  of  slavery 
as  an  impossibility.  A  similar  survey  of  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  on 
this  subject  had  been  admirably  presented,  in  part,  in  a  tract  on  the 
Mosaic  system  of  servitude,  by  the  late  venerated  and  lamented  Judge 
Jay,  whose  services  to  bis  country  as  a  Christian  jurist,  statesman,  phi- 
lanthropist and  patriot,  the  bitter  enemies  of  his  abolitionism  have 
vainly  attempted  to  depreciate  or  conceal 

I  have  demonstrated  the  power  and  duty  of  the  church  and  ministry 


DEDICATION   AND   PREFACE.  V 

with  the  Word  of  God  against  this  sin.  Indifference  and  neutrality  in 
this  conflict  are  treason.  "  He  who  supports  the  system  of  slavery," 
said  the  ABBE  RAYNAL,  "  is  the  enemy  of  the  whole  human  race,  and 
whoever  justifies  it  deserves  the  utmost  contempt  from  the  philosopher, 
and  from  the  negro  a  stab  with  his  dagger."  EAYNAL  here  states  a 
principle  of  desert,  not  a  rule  of  action.  But  again  he  says,  "  If  there 
existed  a  religion  which  tolerated  or  authorized,  though  only  by  its  si- 
lence, such  horrors ;  if,  occupied  with  idle  questions,  it  did  not  thunder 
without  ceasing  against  the  authors  and  instruments  of  this  tyranny  ; 
if  it  made  it  a  crime  for  the  slave  to  break  his  chains ;  if  it  endured  in 
its  bosom  the  unjust  judge  who  would  condemn  the  fugitive ;  if  such  a 
religion  existed,  would  it  not  be  necessary  to  bury  its  ministers  under 
the  ruin  of  their  own  altars  ?"* 

The  Abbe  Raynal  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  but  he  wrote  like  a  prophet, 
and  he  describes  the  religion  of  Protestants,  if  they  sanction  this  in- 
iquity. The  right  of  slavery,  he  justly  declares,  is  the  right  to  commit 
every  species  of  crime ;  so  that  a  church  defending  this  right  is  no  more 
a  church  of  Christ,  but  a  synagogue  of  Satan. 

Let  those  who  have  affirmed  that  American  slavery  could  not  exist 
out  of  the  church,  were  it  not  protected  in  it,  THEMSELVES  PREACH 
AGAINST  IT  ;  let  the  churches  and  the  ministry  not  merely  denounce  it 
in  Confessions  and  General  Assemblies,  but  proclaim  the  word  of  God 
against  it  from  the  pulpit,  and  apply  the  law  of  Christ  in  its  excommu- 
nication, and  our  whole  country  would  speedily  be  redeemed  from  the 
infinite  curse  and  crime.  We  have  been  too  justly  called  a  people  of 
Good  Resolutions ;  and  the  publication  of  strong  wher eases  and  resolves 
gains,  generally,  sufficient  reputation  for  anti-slavery  principles,  without 
any  necessity  or  intention  of  practising  upon  them.  May  God  give  us 
grace  to  do,  as  well  as  say. 

As  Republicans  and  Christians  let  us  adopt  the  generous  sentiment 
of  SIR  SAMUEL  ROMILLY.  "  A  genuine  love  of  liberty  is  not  a  selfish 
feeling  confined  to  ourselves,  and  to  the  contracted  circle  of  our  privi- 

+  ABBE  RAYNAL,  Histoiro  Philosophlque  des  deux  Indes,  Vol.  VI.,  pp.  94-111,  and 
Vol.  I.,  23. 


VI  DEDICATION   AND   PREFACE. 

leged  associates ;  it  expands  itself  to  all  without  distinction.  It  is  as 
indignant  at  that  injustice  which  we  see  done  to  others  as  at  that  which 
we  feel  pressing  upon  ourselves.  It  delights  in  the  security  of  the  mean- 
est in  the  land ;  and  even  rejoices  that  it  is  unable  to  exercise,  as  it  is 
secure  from  suffering,  an  unjust  dominion."  The  sum  of  the  argument, 
and  of  our  duty  to  ourselves  and  others,  is  in  the  prayer  of  the  Psalm- 
ist, DELIVER  ME  FROM  THE  OPPRESSION  OF  MAN  ;  so  WILL  I  KEEP  THY 
PRECEPTS. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  PAGB 

INTRODUCTION.    STATEMENT  OF  THE  ARGUMENT 1 

I. — IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  INVESTIGATION 21 

II. — VARIETIES  OF  THE  DEMONSTRATION  AGAINST  SLAVERY 29 

III. — HISTORIC  INVESTIGATION.    PATRIARCHAL  LIFE 39 

IV. — GOD'S  CHOICE  OF  ABRAHAM,  AND  FOR  WHAT 48 

V. — COCKATRICES'  EGGS  LAID  BY  LEXICOGRAPHERS.  . . . : 57 

VI. — EXAMINATION  OF  ENACTMENTS 66 

VII. — IDIOMS  OF  BUYING  AND  SELLING  IN  THE  CASE  OF  HEBREW 

SERVANTS.    No  PROPERTY  IN  MAN 73 

VIII. — FREEDOM  AND  EIGHTS  OF  THE  CHILDREN  OF  SERVANTS 81 

IX. — GOD'S  FUGITIVE  LAW  FOR  PROTECTION  OF  THE  RUNAWAY.  . .     94 
X. — INJURIOUS  AND  TENACIOUS  MIXTURE  OF  ERROR  AND  TRUTH.  105 

XI. — FIRST  INSTANCE  OF  THE  WORD  FOR  SERVANT 116 

XII.— WORD- ANALYSIS  THROUGH  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM 125 

XIII. — THE  SERVILE  RELATION  FOR  MONEY  NO  PROOF  OF  SLAVERY.  134 
XIV. — DIFFERENT  TRANSLATIONS  OF  THE  SAME  WORD  BY  OUR  ENG- 
LISH TRANSLATORS.    No  WORD  FOR  SLAVE 144 

XV. — PATRIARCHAL  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  ISAAC  AND  JACOB 157 

XVI. — NATURE  OF  TRIBUTARY  SERVITUDE 169 

XVII. — THE  CHILDREN  OF  SOLOMON'S  SERVANTS 184 

XVIII. — JUDGMENT  OF  GOD  AGAINST  SLAVERY  IN  EGYPT 191 

XIX. — TIMES  OF  SERVICE  OF  THE  HEBREW  SERVANT 201 

XX. — PHRASEOLOGY  FOR  CONTRACTS  WITH  SERVANTS 214 

XXI. — THE  LAW  AGAINST  MAN-STEALING,  OR  PROPERTY  IN  MAN.  .  222 

XXII. — STATUTE  FORBIDDING  THE  DELIVERY  OF  FUGITIVES 237 

XXIII. — DEMONSTRATION  CONTINUED  AGAINST  PROPERTY  IN  MAN.  . .  247 
XXIV. — FOUR  IMPOSSIBILITIES  OF  SLAVERY 261 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAOB 

XXV. — SPECIFIC  ENACTMENTS  OP  THE  JUBILEE 278 

XXVI. — SECOND  CLAUSE  OF  PERSONAL  LIBERTY , , . .  292 

XXVII. — CASE  OF  THE  NATIVE  HEBREW  SELLING  HIMSELF  TO  THE 

STRANGER 309 

XXVIII. — COMPARISON  OF  ROMAN  AND  AMERICAN  SLAVERY 326 

XXIX. — THE  ARGUMENT  OP  SILENCE  CONSIDERED 337 

TTY, — WITH  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  is  EXISTENCE,  ANY  NEW  COM- 
MAND AGAINST  SLAVERY  UNNECESSARY 347 

XXXI. — EXAMINATION  OF  GREEK  USAGE  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

EVIDENCE  FROM  MATTHEW  AND  MARK 355 

XXXIL — EVIDENCE  FROM  LUKE.    CASE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON 367 

XXXIII. — EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN  AND  ACTS  OF  THE 

APOSTLES 379 

XXXIV. — EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLES  TO  THE  ROMANS  AND  COR- 
INTHIANS  384 

XXXV. — EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS 391 

XXXVI. — EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS 398 

XXXVII.— EPISTLES  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS  AND  COLOSSIANS 406 

XXXVIII.— EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLES  TO  TIMOTHY  AND  TITUS.  . .  415 
XXXIX. — EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLE  OP  PAUL  TO  PHILEMON.  ...  429 

XL. — EVIDENCE  FROM  HEBREWS,  JAMES,  AND  PETER 446 

XLI. — EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  APOCALYPSE 452 

XUI. — APPEAL  OF  THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT , .  452 


INTRODUCTION. 


NATURE  AND  GENERAL  SCOPE  OP  THE  ARGUMENT. — PHILOLOGICAL,  LEGAL,  HISTORICAL, 
MORAL.— BAPTISM  OK  GUEEK  WORDS  INTO  FREEDOM  FROM  THE  HEBREW. — PROOF  or 

THEIR    USAGE   EXCLUDING  SLAVERY. — TlIE  EKLATION  AND  EEAHTY  OF  SLAVERY  CON- 
DEMNKU  BY  THK  LAW  AND  GCSPEL. — CONSEQUENT  DUTY  OF  THE  CllUBCH. 

THE  argument  which  we  propose  to  develope,  demonstrating 
the  iniquity  of  slavery,  is  fourfold ;  philological,  statutory  or  le- 
gal, historical,  and  moral.  The  argument  from  consequences  is 
both  historical  and  moral. 

In  pursuing  the  philological  argument  we  begin  with  the  He- 
brew, from  which,  through  the  Septuagint  translation,  it  passes 
into  the  New  Testament,  where  it  is  merged  in  the  moral  and  re- 
tributive, and  closes  with  the  great  decisive  judgment,  He  that  is 
unjust,  let  him  be  unjust  still. 

I.  The  philological  argument  is  baptized  throughout  with  the 
idea  of  the  virtue,  manliness,  honorableness  and  Christian  integrity 
of  voluntary  paid  or  rewarded  labor,  as  the  characteristic  of  a 
truly  free  and  benevolent  social  state.  An  admirable  German 
writer  has  thrown  a  great  light,  even  in  a  few  suggestions,  upon 
the  darkness  in  which  this  subject  has  been  involved  in  the  Bibli- 
cal literature  of  his  own  country.  lie  notes  and  corrects  some  of 
the  errors  of  Michaelis.  He  notes  the  fact  that  the  Hebrew 
language  has  no  word  that  stigmatizes  a  part  of  the  laboring 
community  by  a  degrading  brand  mark,  or  separates  them  from 
the  others  as  slaves,  but  only  an  honorable  generic  expression  for 
all  who  stand  in  the  serving  relation.  He  affirms  that  among  a 
people  so  occupied  with  agriculture,  whose  Lawgiver,  Moses,  and 
whose  Kings,  Saul  and  David,  passed  immediately  to  their  high 


ii  INTRODUCTION. 

vocation  from  the  care  of  their  flocks  and  the  labors  of  the  plow, 
there  could  no  degrading  significance  ever  be  attached  to  any 
appellation  of  labor ;  for  the  name  of  the  Servant  of  God  is  the 
honorable  title  of  Moses  and  the  pious.* 

THERE  is  NO  WORD  IN  THE  HEBREW  LANGUAGE  FOR  SLAVE,  and 
this  grand  fact  speaks  volumes.  The  glorious  necessity  and 
penury  of  that  divine  language  in  this  respect,  (a  penury  the 
consequence  of  wealth),  dragged  in  triumph  the  Greek  words 
which  human  depravity  had  applied  to  slavery,  and  made  a  show 
of  them  openly,  having  bound  them  to  the  service  of  a  universal 
and  Christian  freedom.  In  the  work  of  translation,  for  want  of 
another  pure  language  that  had  not  been  created  out  of  despotism 
and  servility,  the  Greek  words  for  service,  though  stamped  with 
the  superscription  of  slavery,  had  to  be  taken  as  the  exponents  of 
the  nobler  Hebrew.  But  the  grand  old  Hebrew  significance  held 
on  and  triumphed,  being  indeed  additionally  elevated  and  trans- 
figured by  the  Gospel. 

The  Greek  was  not  laid  aside,  nor  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon 
with  the  divineness  of  the  Hebrew ;  and  the  words  that  are  thus 
transfigured  must  be  viewed  as  reflecting  the  glory  of  that  Re- 
deemer, whose  incarnation,  death,  and  work  of  redemption  gath- 
ered all  mankind  into  one  free  family.f  To  look  at  them  otherwise, 
in  their  usage  in  the  New  Testament,  would  be  as  if  one  of  the 
disciples  could  have  stripped  Moses  and  Elias  of  their  glory,  and 
compelled  them  to  appear  in  their  earthly  and  mortal  habiliments. 
There  is  no  exaggeration  in  this.  If  any  man  will  examine  carefully 
the  works  of  those  scholars  who  have  written  on  the  principles  of 
interpretation  as  applied  to  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament,  he 
will  find  that  though  this  particular  view  might  not  have  been  in 

*  SAALSCIIUTZ.  Das  Mosaicho  Recht.  of  the  New  Testament  is  based  on  the 

Mosaic  System  of  Laws.  VoL  2,  ch.  writings  of  Moses  and  the  prophets. 

ci,  p.  G97.  The  first  and  principal  helps  for  inves- 

f  SEILER.  Biblical  ITennonuetics.  tigating  the  usage  of  words  in  the 

Part  2,  Sec.  ccxlii,  "  The  language  writings  of  the  Evangelists  and  Apos- 

of  the  New  Testament  had  its  origin  ties  are  the  text  and  the  Greek  trans- 

from  the  Greek  Jews,  and  the  religion  lation  of  the  Old  Testament." 


INTRODUCTION".  Ill 

the  mind  of  those  writers,  yet  the  demonstration  is  inevitable  from 
their  principles.* 

(1.)  The  leading  word  ennobled  by  this  process  is  dovhog,  with 
its  cognates,  as  used  for  the  varieties  of  service.  And  here  what 
is  needed  is  simply  to  rescue  the  text  from  the  insane  thraldom 
which  the  defenders  of  slavery  put  upon  these  words,  of  being 
compelled  into  the  service  of  that  social  and  civil  abomination  and 
crime,  as  if  no  other  meaning  than  that  of  slavery  could  possibly 
be  connected  with  them.  The  question  is  triumphantly  asked, 
Does  not  dovhog  mean  slave  ?  The  pro-slavery  interpreters  have 
melted  down  the  king's  coin,  and  brought  it  to  their  mint,  for 
this  base  image  and  superscription.  They  have  taken  the  basest 
and  most  degraded  meaning  of  the  Greek,  and  have  set  that  as  the 
standard  of  usage  in  Divine  Inspiration.  All  that  is  necessary  in 
regard  to  dovXog  is  to  prove  that  the  New  Testament  writers  used 
it  as  the  synonyme  of  the  free  old  Hebrew  word  nry,  the  proof  of 
which  is'  incontrovertible  through  the  Septuagint  translation.! 
"  As  this  version  became  the  Bible  of  all  the  Jews,  who  were  dis- 
persed throughout  the  countries  where  Greek  was  spoken,  it 
became  the  standard  of  their  Greek  language.''^  It  became  their 
grand  classic  library,  and  in  it  the  word  that  among  the  Greeks 
designated  slaves  was  redeemed  from  that  degradation,  and  applied 
to  freemen,  to  the  free  servants  of  freemen,  and  to  the  children  of 
God.  But,  in  addition  to  this,  it  can  be  proved  that  even  in  classic 
usage,  so  called,  this  word  and  its  cognates  were  not  exclusively 
applied  to  slaves ;  so  that  in  no  case  can  their  occurrence  prove 
that  slaves  or  the  system  of  slavery  were  recognized  or  meant. 
These  words  necessarily  all  received  a  baptism  of  freedom  from 

*  WINER,  Grammar  of  Idioms  of  Greeks  generally  did  not  understand 

the  Greek  Language  of  the  N.  T.,  pp.  and  therefore  despis«d." 
34,  31.     "  The  religious  dialect  of  the         f  Lightfoot's  Works,  Vol.  4,  p.  31. 

Jews,  even  in  the  Greek,   naturally  PLANCK,    Greek    Diction    of   N.    T. 

approached  tho  Hebrew,  and  had  its  ROBINSON,  Philology  N.  T. — TITTMAN 

typo  in  the  Septuagint."  "TheirGreek  on  Forced  Interpretations.     THOLUCK, 

style  took  the  general  complexion  of  Lexicography  N.  T. 
their  mother  tongue.     Hence  origin-         \  Marsh's  Lectures,  p.  3,  sec.  xiv. 
ated  a  Jewish  Greek,  which  native 


iv  INTRODUCTION". 

the  Hebrew,  by  being  employed  in  its  translation  in  so  many  cases 
where  no  meaning  of  slavery  could  attach  to  them ;  and  then 
afterwards  by  being  applied  ordinarily  to  signify  the  domestics  in 
Judean  families,  the  servants  who  were  Jews  themselves,  and  could 
not  possibly  be  slaves. 

In  the  great  and  glorious  fugitive  law,  in  Deut.  xxiii.,  16,  the 
words  used  are  irN  for  the  Hebrew,  a  servant,  and  (5o€'Aof  for  the 
Greek,  a  servant.  No\y  if,  in  this  case,  it  could  even  be  proved 
that  both  these  words,  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  translation, 
meant  slave  and  slave  only,  then  the  argument  would  be  destruc- 
tive of  the  whole  claim  of  slavery  as  having  any  sanction  in  God's 
Word.  For  the  person  here  described  as  a  slave  is  evidently  one 
who  in  God's  sight  has  a  perfect  right  to  his  freedom,  and  the 
same  right  as  to  men  also,  no  matter  what  may  be  their  claims  or 
their  laws  in  regard  to  him.  Those  claims  and  laws  are  so  un- 

O 

righteous,  when  they  treat  him  as  a  slave,  that  he  has  a  perfect 
right  to  break  away  from  them,  and  God  himself  forbids  any  man 
from  interfering  with  that  right,  but  commands  every  man  to 
defend  it,  and  to  protect  the  fugitive  in  its  enjoyment,  without  any 
regard  to  wicked  human  enactments. 

But  the  stranger  and  the  native  were  placed  upon  the  same 
footing,  for  certainly  God  would  not  have  inserted  in  his  laws  for 
his  own  people  a  privilege  in  behalf  of  the  heathen  which  could 
have  been  denied  in  behalf  of  the  Hebrew  citizen.  So  that,  if  the 
•word  describing  the  fugitive  means  slave,  it  is  as  clear  as  the  day 
that  slavery  is  unjust  and  wrong  in  God's  sight,  that  the  claim  of 
property  in  man  is  sinful  and  good  for  nothing,  not  to  be  respected, 
but  rejected,  and  reprobated,  and  defied. 

And  if  it  does  not  mean  slave,  then  it  means  a  freeman  unjustly 
treated  as  a  slpive;  so  that  we  have  here  a  case,  in  the  very  in- 
stance and  principle,  in  the  very  text  and  law,  on  which  the  Epis- 
tle of  Paul  to  Philemon  is  grounded,  of  the  utter  repudiation  of 
slavery,  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  its  being  sanctioned  by 
divine  permission,  the  assertion  of  the  duty  of  protecting  the  op- 
pressed servant,  of  the  claim  of  the  fugitive  slave  to  freedom,  and 


INTRODUCTION.  V 

of  the  duty,  on  the  part  of  Christians,  to  give  freedom  to  the  op- 
pressed fugitive,  whether  slave  or  servant,  to  give  freedom  to  the 
oVDAof,  and  on  no  account  return  him  into  the  power  of  the 
oppressor. 

The  Septuagint  usage  of  the  word  dovAo^,  for  free  service,  may 
be  known  by  comparing  the  following  instances  :  Ex.  xxi,,  2  ;  Josh., 
i.,  1,  xiv.,  7,  xxii.,  4  ;  Judges  vi.,  27,  xix.,  19:1  Sam.  xvii.,  9,  xviii. 
5,  xxv.,  10  ;  2  Sam.  ix.,  10,  xii.,  18,  xix.,  17  ;  1  Kings  xii.,  7  ;  2 
Kings  iv.,  1  ;  1  Chron.  vi.,  49;  Neh.  ix.,  14;  Dan.  ix.,  11  ;  Eccl. 
v.,  11,  where  it  is  for  nry,  the  sleep  of  a  laboring  man  is  sweet. 
These  cases,  in  comparison  with  others,  prove  incontrovertibly  a 
very  general  use  of  dovAof,  where  the  meaning  of  slave  can  not 
be  admitted  or  intimated^ ;  and  no  Jew,  in  any  of  the  instances  in 
which  it  was  applied  to  any  of  his  own  nation,  would  endure  the 
signification  of  slavery.  It  thus  passed  into  the  New  Testament 
as  a  synonyme  of  the  old,  free,  honorable  Hebrew  word  t^y,  and 
•was  employed  by  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  as  of  the  Old, 
indifferently,  to  signify  servants  in  families,  servants  of  God,  ser- 
vants of  Christ,  servants  among  the  Pagans,  servants  among  Chris- 
tians ;  and  if  at  any  time  it  refers  to  slaves,  it  is  with  no  intima- 
tion of  any  sanction  of  slavery,  but  rather  (as  in  1  Tim.  vi.,  1,  2) 
in  the  supposition  that  only  out  of  the  church  of  Christ,  only 
among  Pagans  and  unbelievers,  can  there  be  found  persons  who 
will  hold  slaves  ;*  and  that  when  Christians  are  so  unfortunate  as 
to  be  held  under  such  a  yoke,  they  must  endure  it  to  the  honor  of 
God,  in  the  hope  of  the  conversion  of  their  heathen  masters,  al- 

*  SAALSCHUTZ.     DAS    MOSAISCHE  from  which  every  element  of  slavery 

RECHT.     Laws  of  Moses,  vol.  2.,  715.  was  excluded.     He  points  out  what 

He  remarks  on  the   impossibility  of  he  designates  as  a  most   pernicious 

the   system  of   slavery  having   pre-  mistake    brought    in    by  Machaelis} 

vailed   among  the   Hebrews,  in  the  that  of  giving  the  title  of  bondage  or 

sense  of  that  word  in  modern  times,  slavery  to  the  system  of  Jewish  ser- 

and  among  the  nations  out  of  Judea ;  vice,  when  it  was  not  slavery  at  all, 

and  states   the    impropriety   of   the  and  did  not  allow  of  slavery.     The 

term    slavery  being  applied  to  the  work  of  Saalschutz  was  published  in 

Hebrew  system  of  domestic  service,  Berlin,  in  1846. 


ri  INTKODUCTIOX. 

though,  if  they  can  be  made  free,  they  must  not  be  slaves,  but 
ehould  gain  and  keep  their  freedom.* 

(2).  The  same  is  true  in  regard  to  the  word  dovkeia,  service, 
often  rendered  bondage  in  English,  but  which  in  the  original  is  so 
often  used  of  the  work  or  ministry  of  a  free  person  that  there 
can  be  no  argument  of  slavery  drawn  from  its  usage  any  where, 
unless  the  context  plainly  proves  that  slavery  is  the  subject  of  dis- 
course.f  The  usage  in  the  Septuagint  may  be  seen  from  the  fol- 
lowing instances :  Gen.  xxx.,  26,  of  Jacob's  service  to  Laban ;  1 
Kings  v.,  6,  of  Hiram's  and  Solomon's  servants  ;  1  Kings  xii.,  4, 
Solomon's  service  upon  the  people  of  his  kingdom  ;  1  Chron.  vi., 
48,  service  of  the  Levites  for  the  Tabernacle  ;  xxv.,  6,  service  of 
the  singers  in  the  house  of  God ;  Psalm  civ.,  4,  herb  for  the  ser- 
vice of  man;  Ez.  xxix.,  18,  Nebuchadnezzar's  service  and  hire 
unto  God. 


*  CAMPBELL  on  the  Gospels,  voL  2. 
Note  on  Matt,  xx.,  27,  declares  that 
by  the  word  dofhos  is  meant  a  servant 
in  general,  whatever  kind  of  work  he 
be  employed  in,  as  well  as  a  slave. 
"It  is  solely  from  the  scope  and  con- 
nection that  we  must  judge  when  it 
should  be  rendered  in  the  one  way, 
and  when  in  the  other."  The  men- 
tion of  the  subject,  or  the  occurrence 
of  the  word,  does  not  justify  the  re- 
lation or  the  sin.  Neither  does  the 
silence  of  the  sacred  writer  imply  a 
sanction ;  no  more  than  the  silence 
of  Christ,  when  John  was  beheaded 
by  Herod,  implied  the  sanction  of  that 
murder.  See  also  DR.  F.  A.  Cox, 
(England)  Scriptural  Duty  to  Slave- 
holders, etc.  He  describes  6ov%o(  as 
"  a  generic  term,  applied  to  all  the  re- 
lations of  servitude  and  acts  of  service, 
even  when  no  inferiority  of  rank  or 
condition  is  predicable." 

f  JOSEPHUS.  Antiq.  B.  xvi.,  eh.  1. 
Ho  is  speaking  of  the  impossibility, 


under  the  law  of  Moses,  of  there 
being  such  a  thing  as  the  slavery  of 
the  Jews  to  foreigners.  He  says  that 
in  case  of  crime,  a  thief,  if  he  have 
not  enough  property  to  make  restitu- 
tion for  his  theft,  may  be  sold  for  the 
amount  of  his  theft,  that  is,  his  ser- 
vices may  be  sold  to  such  an  amount, 
and  he  may  be  compelled  to  work, 
till  his  labor  shall  have  amounted  to 
such  a  sum.  But  he  can  not  be  sold 
to  foreigners  at  any  rate,  neither  to 
one  of  his  own  nation  in  such  man- 
ner as  to  be  under  perpetual  slavery, 
for  he  must  have  been  released  after 
six  years.  This  is  a  very  positive  and 
striking  proof  of  the  meaning  of  the 
Jewish  system  of  service  as  limited 
and  voluntary;  and  inasmuch  as 
dovZetav  is  the  word  used  by  Jose- 
phus  (translated,  however,  in  English 
slavery),  it  is  clear  that  such  phrase- 
ology does  not  of  necessity  mean 
slavery,  but  is  used  for  the  service  of 
hired  laborers  and  freemen. 


INTRODUCTION. 


(3).  The  usage  of  (JovAeuw  is  under  the  same  conditions.  It  is 
employed  in  the  Septuagint  for  the  Hebrew  verb  naa>,  to  labor, 
and  receives  and  retains  a  signification  of  freedom,  in  being  used 
as  the  exponent  of  that  word.*  It  is  employed  where  slavery 
could  not  be  meant,f  as  for  example,  in  Gen.  xiv.,  4,  of  tributary 
confederates  serving  Chedorlaomer,  and  Gen.  xxv.,  23,  the  elder 
shall  serve  the  younger;  xxix.,  15,  of  Jacob  serving  Laban;  xxxi., 
6,  of  the  same;  Ex.  xxi.,  2,  6,  of  the  service  of  the  Hebrew  ser- 
vant; Deut.  xv.,  18,  worth  a  double  hired  servant  in  serving  six 
years  ;  Hosea  xii.,  12,  Israel  served  for  a  wife. 

(4).  The  word  ot/cerT/f  is  another  term  employed  in  the  New 
Testament  for  servants,  which  might  mean  slave,  if  the  context 
rendered  it  necessary,  if  the  subject  matter  was  that  of  slaves  or 
slavery  ;  but  also  it  is  used  for  freemen  and  free  servants,  and 
might  be  applied,  and  was  applied,  in  that  sense. 

Now  otKerqs  is  rendered  by  Calvin  in  the  Latin  word  famulus, 
and  he  notes  that  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  doi/hoi,  but  oiKerai,  that 
is  used  in  1  Pet.  ii.,  18,  the  passage  may  be  understood  to  refer 
to  free  servants  as  well  as  slaves.^  And  Bretschneider  says  that 
oiKETrjg  is  used  not  merely  of  slaves,  but  also  of  freemen,  of  the 
wife  and  the  children.§  Josephus  employs  this  word  for  servants 
of  the  Hebrews,  who  could  not  possibly  be  slaves.  ||  It  is  em- 

*  JoSEFnus,  Antiq.,  B.  3,  ch.  xii.,  Trypho,  where  be  employs  the  word 

sec.  3.     He  describes  the  fiftieth  year  edovfavatv  to   signify  the  labor  of 

as  "  a  jubilee,  in  which  debtors  were  Jacob  in  the  service  of  Laban.     This 

freed  from  their  debts,   and  the  ser-  was  not  slavery,  but  a  free,  voluntary 

*vant.-?  were  set  at  liberty,  which  ser-  contract.     See  Gen.  xxix.,  15,  20. 

vants  (translated  slaves  in  the  Eng-  \  STEPHANUS,  Thesaurus.    He  gives 

lish)  became  such,  though  of  the  same  an  instance  from  Diogenes   Laertius 

stock,  by  transgressing."     The  Greek  of  tiovhevu  applied  to   working  for 

is  not  slaves,  but  being  employed  of  wages. 

Hebrews  certainly  signifies  a  free  ser-  \  CALVIN,  Com.  in  1  Peter  ch.  ii. 

vice    on.   a    voluntary  contract  ;     ol  §  BKETSCUNEIDER,  Lex.     "  Non  so- 

6ov/.Evovre(  eTievdepoi  dQievrai,  those  lum  do  scrvis,  sed  etiam  do  liberis." 

engaged  at  service  were  set  free.    This  ||  JOSEPHUS  against  Apion,  B.  2, 

phraseology  is  that  used  also  by  Jus-  Sec.  19,  and  elsewhere. 
TIN  MARTYB  ua  his  Dialogue  with 


Viii  INTRODUCTION. 

ployed  in  the  SEPTUAGINT  for  those  who  were  not  and  could  not 
be  slaves.*  In  the  same  way  it  is  employed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Stephanus,  Liddell  and  Scott,  Schleusner,  refer  to  a  similar 
usage  in  classical  writers,  so  that  it  is  sometimes  opposed  to  dovkov 
(Herodotus,  example,  also  Xenophon),  and  in  the  N.  T.  there  could 
be  no  indication  or  intimation  from  it  of  the  existence  of  slavery. 

Now  Facciolatus  renders  famulus  by  the  Greek  word  vnripe~7j^ 
and  the  Latin  words  minister,  servus.\  At  the  same  time  he  says 
that  famulus  is  employed  concerning  a  free  man  serving  another, 
and  ministering.  Hence  Ulpian  is  quoted  showing  that  all,  even 
free  men,  are  comprehended  under  the  name  of  families,  who  are 
in  service ;  famulus  is  also  used  concerning  ministers  of  the  gods. 

Again,  servus  is  rendered  by  Facciolatus  as  famulus,  and  dovkog 
and  depatruv  are  presented  as  synonyms  in  the  Greek.  But  he 
quotes  Cicero  pro  Cluentio  as  saying,  Legum  id  circo  omnes  servi 
sumus,  ut  liberi  esse  possimus,  we  are  all  for  this  very  purpose 
servants  to  the  law,  that  we  might  be  free.  A  wise  and  beautiful 
apothegm,  not  a  little  like  the  language  of  Paul  in  regard  to  our 
being  servants  of  Christ,  that  we  might  have  perfect  freedom. 
And  even  concerning  the  word  verna,\  a  home-born  slave,  Facci- 
olatus says  that  it  was  used  sometimes  in  application  to  a  freeman 
born  at  Rome.  But  as  to  depa-rruv,  which  Facciolatus  has  set 
with  dovhog,  as  the  translation  of  servus,  the  lexicographers  affirm 
that  in  Homer  and  the  old  authors  it  always  differs  from  doi)Aof, 
as  implying  free  and  honorable  service.  But  in  Chios  Oepanovreg 
was  the  name  for  their  slaves. 

Now  0epa7ro>v  is  the  word  used  by  the  Septuagint,  instead  of 
dovhog,  in  several  instances,  concerning  Moses,  as  a  translation  of 
the  Hebrew  1^9,  the  word  for  servant,  though,  as  is  well  known, 
the  word  tSovAof  is  most  commonly  employed  for  all  forms  and 
qualities  of  service.  But  depa-rruv  is  also  the  word  employed  by 

0  SEPT.  Trans.  Gen.  xxvii.,   37;  f  FACCIOLATUS,  Lex.  Lat.  FAMULUS. 

Lex.  xxv.  42,  55;  Num.  xxxii.,  5;  j  BECKER,  Gallus,  213.     "  Vernce, 

Prov.  xxii,  7 ;  Deut  xxxii.,  5,   (of  children  resulting  from  the  contuber- 

Moses).  nium  among  the  slaves." 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

Paul  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  (ch.  iii.,  5),  in  regard  to  Moses, 
and  it  is  the  only  instance  in  all  the  New  Testament  in  which  this 
word  is  used,  while  6ovko$  is  used  in  cases  without  number,  of 
free  men  in  free,  voluntary  and  honorable  service.  All  this 
shows  (1)  how  closely  the  usage  in  the  New  Testament  follows  that 
of  the  Septuagint,  and  (2)  how  impossible  it  is  to  draw  any  con- 
clusion from  the  use  of  any  word,  which,  in  the  classical  Greek 
writers,  may  have  ordinarily  meant  slave,  that  such  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  in  the  New  Testament.  The  Septuagint  trans- 
lators of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  the  classics  of  the  New 
Testament  writers,  although  Paul  was  familiar,  perhaps,  Avith  all 
the  Greek  literature  of  his  time. 

The  proof  from  the  use  of  the  word  depa-iruv  is  conclusive  as 
to  the  freedom  of  the  domestic  service  and  of  servants  among  the 
Hebrews.  It  is  used  not  only  of  Moses,  in  Numbers  and  Joshua, 
but  of  Job,  in  the  book  of  Job,  (i.,  8 ;  ii.,  3  ;  xlii.,  7  ;)  and  by  Job 
himself  concerning  his  own  servants,  (xix.,  16,)  I  called  my  ser- 
vant, and  he  gave  me  no  answer,  and  (xxxi.,  13,)  If  I  did  despise 
the  cause  of  my  man-servant  or  of  my  maid-servant,  etc.,  and  of 
servants  generally,  (iii.,  19,)  the  servant  is  free  from  his  master, 
and  (vii.,  2,)  as  a  servant  earnestly  desireth  the  shadow,  etc.  It 
is  used  also  in  Numbers  xxxii.,  31,  of  the  children  of  Gad  and 
Reuben.  The  use  of  this  word  by  Paul,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, in  speaking  of  Moses,  was  adopted,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt, 
because  the  Septuagint  translation  used  it  in  places  which  referred 
to  Moses  as  God's  faithful  servant  over  God's  house. 

Moses  is  also  called  in  the  Septuagint  oiKerrjg  (as  in  Deut. 
xxxiv.,  5).  In  the  New  Testament  oineTrjS  no  more  indicates  a 
slave  than  OIKETTJ^  or  depa-rrw  in  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Trommius  renders  the  word,  doraesticus,  famulus, 
servus.*  And  domesticus  is  the  word  employed  by  Lardner  for 
otKeioi,  in  rendering  the  text  Eph.  ii.,  19,  "no  more  strangers,  but 
fellow  citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God."  You 

*  TROIISIII  Concord.  Groec.  Vet.  Test. 


X  INTEODUCTION. 

have  equal  rights  of  citizenship  with  the  people  and  natives  of  the 
country,  and  are  God's  domestics.*  Whether  domesticus,  or  famu- 
lus, or  servus,  in  the  translation  into  Latin  be  employed,  or  oiKerr^g, 
or  dianovos,  or  6ovXog,  or  departs,  in  the  Greek,  there  is  no  more 
indication  of  slavery  than  when  the  Hebrew  word  for  servant 
tzy.  is  employed  in  the  Old  Testament,!  and  rendered  by  the 
Greek  translators  oiKerr)g,l  or  (JovAof,  or  Oepa-rrav,  or  by  the  Latin 
vulgate  servus,  or  famulus,  or  domesticus,  or  verna. 

(5.)  An  examination  of  the  Septuagint  usage  of  the  words 
dovkr],  maid-servant,  and  -naidioiCT],  maiden,  damsel,  servant,  as 
employed  for  the  Hebrew  words  rms«  and  nhEB,  reveals  the  same 
conditions.  These  Greek  words  received  the  same  free  signifi- 
cance from  the  Hebrew,  and  carried  it  into  the  dialect  of  the  New 
Testament.  In  Ruth  iii.,  9,  dov^T],  handmaid,  is  applied  to  Ruth 
herself;  so  in  ii.,  13.  So,  1  Sam.  i.,  11,  16,  18,  of  Hannah  ;  and 
chapter  xxv.,  several  times  of  Abigail;  2  Sam.  xx.,  17.  Saal- 
schutz  and  others  have  noted  the  free  signification  of  these  Hebrew 
words ;  improperly,  at  any  time,  translated  by  words  that  convey 
the  meaning  of  slavery.  Bondwoman  is  not  the  proper  translation 
of  the  word  designating  Hagar  in  Hebrew  as  Sarah's  maid. 

(6.)  The  usage  of  naidioKi]  is  subject  to  the  same  law.  Gen. 
xxi.,  10,  12,  13 ;  xxx.,  3 ;  xxxi.,  33 ;  Ex.  xx.,  10,  17 ;  xxi.,  20,  32  ; 
xxiii.,  12  ;  Deut.  xii.,  12,  18;  xv.,  17  ;  xvi.,  11,  14  ;  Ruth  ii,  13  ; 
iv.,  12  ;  1  Sam.  xxv.,  41  ;  Jer.  xxxiv.,  9, 11, 16.  The  examination 
demonstrates  its  usage  of  free  persons.  To  translate  it  by  the 
word  bondwoman  or  slave  would  be  to  convey  a  falsehood  under 
the  claim  of  revelation. 

All  these  words  are  used  in  the  New  Testament  of  free  persons. 

*LARDNER  on  Peter.    Works,  VoL  could  not  bo  called  slaves.    They  were 

6,  p.  218.  in  no  sense  such.     He  exposes  the 

f  SAALSCHUTZ.      Laws  of   Moses,  falsehood  of  any  such  appellative  to 

Vol.  2,  714.    "With  what  justice  (this  the  system. 

writer  well  demands)  can  any  one  ap-  J  BRETSCHNEEDER.      Lex.   N".    T. 

ply  the  term  of  servDe  thraldom  or  oiKerris,  applied  to  free  persons,  non 

slavery  to  a  free  system  like  that  solum  d&  servis  sed  eliam  de  liberis, 

among  the  Hebrews  ?     Persons  that  uxore,  filiis. 
were  free  by  law  every  seventh  year 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

And  though  some  of  them  generally,  and  others  often,  were  applied 
in  classic  Greek,  out  of  Judea,  to  the  state  and  custom  of  slavery, 
they  were  prepared  for  Christianity  and  for  the  state  of  freedom, 
first  as  Hebrew  proselytes  in  the  Septuagint,  second,  as  adopted 
into  the  family  of  Christ,  where  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free.* 
Such  is  the  course  of  the  argument  in  all  its  branches,  from 
Genesis  to  Revelation,  under  the  guidance  and  presence  of  the 
free  system  and  words  of  the  Hebrew  dispensation. 

II.  The  second  great  form  of  the  argument,  the  legal  or  statu- 
tory, runs  on  in  the  same  manner,  under  the  same  influences. 
The  whole  system  is  a  system  for  freemen,  and  there  is  no  legisla- 
tion for  slaves.  Something  of  the  power  of  the  argument  from 
the  system  of  laws  comes  out  in  the  way  of  contrast.  Ye  shall  not 
commit  the  crimes  which  ye  have  seen  committed  by  the  Egyp- 
tians, but  ye  shall  set  yourselves  against  them.  Ye  were  oppressed 
in  Egypt,  ye  shall  not  oppress  one  another ;  ye  were  strangers  in 
Egypt,  ye  shall  love  the  stran-ger  as  yourselves.f 

This  general  principle  prevailed,  and  excluded  the  possibility 
of  caste,  or  prejudice  against  color  or  labor,  from  ever  getting  a 
foothold.  It  was  a  law  of  Egypt  that  the  murder,  whether  of  a 

*  CAMPBELL.      Preliminary    Diss.  now  the  saints  but  tho  infidels  that 

to  tho  Interp.  N.  T.    Dis.  2.  part  ii.  call  in  question  tho  justice  of  slavery- 

The  words  Greek,  but  the  spirit  He-  HUMBOLDT,  Kingdom  of  New  Spain, 

brew.     Campbell's  acute  and  interest-  Vol.  1,  chap.  vii. 
ing  instances  of  the  naturalization  laws        f  MARSIIAJ:.      Lex   Mosaic.      Ex 

in  regard  to  words,  and  the  causes  malis  Egyptiorum  moribus,  bonce  Is- 

and  methods  of  their  operation,  might  raelitarum   leges,    remarks   Marsham, 

be  carried,  with  great  weight,  into  tho  with  as  much  truth  as  antithesis.  Out 

illustration  of  the  subject  of  slavery,  of  tho  wicked  manners  and  morals  of 

With  the  antique  pagans  slavery  was  the  Egyptians  sprang  the  admirable 

a  virtue  of  society,  with  the  Christians  laws  of  the  Israelites.      God  never 

it  was  a  vice.     With  modern  pagans  permitted  his  people  to  be  personal 

it  is  a  vice,  with  modem  Christians  (but  slaves  till  the  crucifixion  of  the  Sa- 

only  in  the  United  States)  it  is  a  vir-  viour  and  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 

tue,  established  by  law.     Not  without  But  out  of  tho  hard  bondage  laid  upon 

just  ground  did  the  celebrated  Hum-  them    by  Pharaoh    grew  the    legal 

boldt  record  his  sarcasm  against  pro-  provisions    against    personal   slavery 

fessedly   Christian    slaveholders    and  through  all  generations.     Lev.  xix.» 

churches  in  America,  that  it  is  not  34;  Deut.  x.,  19. 


Xii  INTRODUCTION. 

freeman  or  a  slave,  was  to  be  punished  with  death  ;*  and  Heeren 
regarded  this  equality  of  the  penalty,  together  with  the  law  for- 
bidding imprisonment  for  debt,  as  among  some  proofs  of  an. 
advancement  in  moral  culture  among  the  Egyptians,  such  as  few 
of  the  nations  of  antiquity  have  made.f  It  was  a  law,  Diodorus 
has  noted,  that  if  any  man  slew  another,  or  seeing  him  suffer 
violence,  did  not  rescue  him,  though  he  were  able,  he  should  be 
put  to  death.  Compare  with  this,  Prov.  xxiv.,  11,  12,  "If  thou 
forbear  to  deliver  them  that  are  ready  to  be  slain,"  etc.  There 
was  no  difference,  among  the  Hebrews,  as  to  the  claims  of  benevo- 
lence, between  the  native  and  the  stranger.  Michaelis  notices 
particularly  the  fact  of  "  the  inequality  between  citizens  and 
strangers  being  counteracted  by  a  law  which  ordained  crimes,  at 
least  of  various  kinds,  to  be  punished  precisely  in  the  same  man- 
ner on  both."  There  shall  be  one  and  the  same  law  for  the 
native  and  the  stranger.J 

These  principles,  laid  down  in  the  law  book  of  the  nation,  are 
such,  that  not  only  among  themselves,  but  in  regard  to  strangers, 
all  manner  of  oppression  was  forbidden  and  excluded.  No  form 
of  slavery  could  exist  with  such  constitutional  safeguards  against 
it,  any  more  than  a  monarchical  form  of  government  could  exist 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Not  till  tlie  spirit 
of  the  people  had  departed  could  the  forms  of  constitutional  law 
be  violated ;  and  when  they  were  violated,  then  the  wrath  of  God 
descended.  The  law  of  freedom  was  not  only  national,  but  par- 
ticular, extending  even  to  the  treatment  of  the  fugitive  by  each 
individual,  the  duty  of  each  and  every  person  being  to  maintain 
and  defend  freedom  for  each  and  every  other  person.  The  law 
was  of  liberty  every  man  to  his  brother,  and  every  man  to  his 
neighbor.  The  attempted  violation  of  this  law  in  the  time  of 

*  DIODORUS  SICULUS.     But  Plato  f  HEEREN.    Ideen  uber  die  Politik, 

thought  there  ought  to  be  different  etc.,  der  alten  welt,  347. 

laws  for  freemen  and  slaves ;  a  word  J   MICHAELIS.      Laws    of   Moses, 

for  a  freeman,  a  blow  for  a  slave,  and  Vol.  2,  art.  cxxxviii. 
so    in    proportion.       See    BECKER'S 
Charicles.     Excursus,  Slaves. 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

Jeremiah  sent  the  whole  nation  into  captivity ;  so  that  here  both 
the  reality  and  significance  of  the  law  are  demonstrated,  and  the 
abhorrence  of  God  against  slavery,  in  such  manner  as  cannot  be 
mistaken.  The  law  laid  upon  every  man  a  responsibility  of  free- 
dom for  his  neighbor. 

Entering  upon  the  New  Testament,  it  is  not  to  be  imagined 
that  the  glorious  elevation  and  scope  of  this  commandment  would 
be  ignored  and  contradicted.  Accordingly,  in  the  Epistle  to 
Philemon,  we  find  the  rule  of  giving  liberty  every  man  to  his 
brother  and  every  man  to  his  neighbor  reestablished,  and  slavery 
abolished.  The  law  of  freedom,  by  the  love  of  Christ,  accomplishes 
in  the  New  Testament  what  the  law  of  God  had  appointed  in  the 
Old. 

III.  The  historical  argument  is  intimately  connected  with  the 
legal,  running  along  with  it,  illustrating  it,  and  illustrated  by  it. 
In  exactly  the  same  manner  it  is  baptized  with  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom, being  not  the  history  of  slavery,  but  of  God's  providence, 
word  and  grace,  against  slavery,  and  of  the  destruction  and  misery 
of  the  nation  through  the  very  attempt  to  establish  slavery.  The 
attempt  comes  out,  as  the  climax  of  Jewish  wickedness,  in  the 
thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Jeremiah's  prophecy,  the  punishment  of 
which  cured  the  madness  and  the  crime.  The  later  history  dis- 
closes a  nation  and  a  social  system,  the  legitimate  growth  of  laws 
excluding  slavery,  and  rendering  individual  labor,  and  especially 
the  labors  of  agriculture,  free,  honorable  and  ennobling.  Every 
man  received  a  just  recompense  of  wages  for  his  work,  whether 
the  contracted  time  were  longer  or  shorter.*  No  idea  is  clearer 

*  CAVE  on  the  Mosaical  Dispensa-  torn  of  society  to  have  been  that  of 
tion  (Lives  of  the  Apostles),  82.  He  voluntary  labor  upon  hire,  upon  con- 
quotes  Antigonus  Sochaeus,  two  hun-  tract  between  the  parties,  and  not 
dred  and  eighty-four  years  before  that  of  slavery,  where  the  master 
Christ,  exhorting  his  disciples  not  to  owned  the  man,  and  paid  him  noth- 
be  like  mercenary  servants,  who  servo  ing  for  his  work,  and  was  not  sup- 
merely  for  the  wages  they  can  get  posed  to  be  under  any  obligation  to 
from  their  masters,  but  to  servo  God  pay  him  any  thing.  There  was  no 
for  himself,  without  expectation  of  such  slavery  in  Judea. 
reward.  This  plainly  shows  the  cus- 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

or  more  common,  throughout  the  New  Testament,  than  that  of 
the  voluntary  choice  of  masters  and  of  service,  with  agreement 
of  the  price,  the  conditions,  and  the  payment  of  stipulated  wages. 
The  supposition  of  such  voluntary,  paid  service  runs  through  the 
whole  gospels  and  epistles. 

And  whereas  the  history  in  the  Old  Testament  discloses  a  law 
for  the  protection  of  fugitives,  exactly  such  as  might  be  expected 
to  follow  in  the  train  of  a  system  of  legislation  that  condemned 
the  making  merchandise  of  man  to  the  punishment  of  death,  the 
current  of  the  New  Testament  brings  us  to  the  fulfillment  of  that 
law,  under  the  gospel ;  brings  us  to  just  such  a  state  of  society  as 
we  might  suppose  would  grow  out  of  such  a  system  of  laws,  in 
conjunction  with  the  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  gospel,  with  the 
injunction  upon  the  Christian  master,  in  the  name  of  Christ  and 
his  love,  to  receive  that  fugitive  as  a  free  brother,  no  longer  a  ser- 
vant, but  a  brother  beloved,  both  in  the  flesh  and  in  the  Lord. 
The  historical  argument  is  here  perfect  and  complete,  having 
traveled  all  along  with  the  legal,  and  now  uniting  with  it  in  a 
harmony  of  proof  as  impressive  and  instructive  as  it  is  delightful. 
This  history  of  the  conduct  of  Paul  and  Philemon,  in  regard  to 
this  matter,  was  presented,  doubtless,  for  this  very  purpose,  to 
show  that  the  Hebrew  laws  against  slavery  and  in  behalf  of  fugi- 
tives and  freedom  were  not  a  temporary  speculation,  but  enjoined 
a  practical,  essential  form  of  virtue,  justice  and  piety,  to  last  as 
long  as  the  world  stands. 

A  striking  part  of  this  history  is  the  record  of  the  first  sermon 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  Nazareth,  on  the  text  in  Is.  Ixi.,  1,  2.  He 
hath  anointed  me  to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  the  ac- 
ceptable year,  the  jubilee  year  of  the  Lord.  The  last  jubilee,  the 
closing  jubilee  of  the  history  of  the  Jewish  nation,  "fell  with  the 
year  of  the  death  of  the  Redeemer."*  Lightfoot  notes  it  as  a 

*  LIGHTFOOT.     Harmony.    Part  3.  indeed."       Lightfoot's    chronological 

"Works,  vol.  v.,   135.     "  Not  only  a  reckoning  makes  the  last  jubilee  of 

year  of  jubilee,  in  a  spiritual  sense,"  the  Jewiah  nation,  (freedom  to  all  the 

says  Lightfoot,  "  but  also  a  year  of  inhabitants  of  the  land),  correspond 

jubilee  in  the  literal  and  proper  sense  with  the  year  of  the  crucifixion. 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

year  of  jubilee  in  the  literal  and  proper  sense  indeed.  But  what 
a  lamentable  confusion  and  destruction  of  the  prototype  and  pro- 
phetic history  would  there  have  been,  if,  when  the  time  for  this 
closing  jubilee  had  come,  being  a  festival  instituted  as  a  jubilee 
of  personal  liberty  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  the  old  di- 
vine statutes  of  personal  freedom  had  been  abrogated,  and  in  their 
stead  the  gospel  had  sanctioned  and  established  personal  slavery ! 
Instead  of  this,  the  gospel  abolished  all  slavery,  and  brought  in  a 
new  and  perfect  freedom  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  gospel  law  abol- 
ished every  thing  evil,  and  fulfilled  and  carried  to  the  uttermost 
perfection  every  thing  good.  This  law  of  advancement  from  that 
which  was  transitory  and  imperfect  to  that  which  was  to  be  per- 
manent and  perfect,  wanting  nothing,  is  so  plain,  so  unquestion- 
able, that  it  is  amazing  that  any  human  being  could  so  far  forget 
and  confound  it  as  to  admit  the  possibility  of  a  form  of  oppres- 
sion which  had  been  branded  in  the  Old  Testament  as  a  crime 
worthy  of  death,  being  exalted  in  the  New  into  a  sacred,  civil  and 
domestic  system,  the  supporters,  defenders  and  practisers  of  which 
were  to  be  received  as  owners  of  slaves,  making  merchandise  of 
men,  into  the  communion  of  the  Christian  church  ! 

An  astonishing  example  of  such  confusion  is  found  even  in  the 
pages  of  such  a  writer  as  Olshausen,  who  admits  that  "  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  could  not  be  approved  by  Christianity,  for  it  was 
the  product  of  sin  ;"*  but  afterwards  intimates  that  inasmuch  as 
it  was  an  institution  established  in  the  world,  and  the  apostles 
found  it  established,  "  therefore  they  did  not  forbid  it !"  "  The 
apostles,"  he  says,  "  would  have  blamed  severely  the  introduction 
of  slavery,  if  it  had  not  existed  when  the  gospel  came  into  the 
world!"  Just  as  if  the  fact  of  a  sin  being  established  gave  it  a 
solid  moral  claim,  and  exempted  it  from  moral  reprobation  !  And 
again  he  says,  "  The  defenders  of  negro  slavery  can  not  appeal  to 
Paul,  for  negro  slavery  is  recent,  and  not  from  the  earliest  times, 
but  was  introduced  by  Christians  themselves,  to  their  everlasting 
disgrace,  and  is  kept  up  only  by  fraud  and  kidnapping." 

*  OLSHAUSEN  on  Ephcsians  vi.,  5,  etc. 


xvi  IXTEODUCTION-. 

In  this  singular  reasoning  we  have  a  decisive  reprobation  of 
slavery,  as  contrary  to  the  law  and  essence  of  Christianity,  and 
yet  its  possession  of  the  world,  when  Christianity  comes,  is  pre- 
sented as  a  higher  law  than  Christianity,  or  as  constituting  nine 
tenths  of  the  law,  and  imposing  silence  on  the  gospel  in  regard 
to  it.*  By  the  same  method  of  reasoning  the  apostles  were  bound 
to  have  said  nothing  against  idolatry,  that  also  being  an  estab- 
lished institution  of  society,  when  and  where  the  gospel  came, 
an  institution  involving  civil  rights  and  relations,  with  which  the 
gospel  must  not  interfere.  But  this  is  neither  the  law,  nor  the 
spirit,  nor  the  history,  neither  of  Judaism  nor  Christianity,  which 
are  both  as  united  against  slavery  as  they  are  against  idolatry. 

IV.  The  moral  argument  is  a  combination  of  the  philological, 
legal  and  historical,  which  all  converge  in  the  great  lesson  of  uni- 
versal charity  taught  by  the  gospel,  Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them,  and,  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  These  laws  lay  hold  also  of  the 
great  announcement  in  the  New  Testament  that  God  hath  made 
of  one  blood  all  the  races  of  men  that  dwell  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth ;  with  the  other  great  fact  that  every  wall  of  caste,  color, 
national  peculiarity  and  prejudice,  is  broken  down  in  Christ,  and 
that  in  him,  in  the  church,  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  circum- 
cision nor  uncircumcision,  Barbarian  nor  Scythian,  bond  nor  free. 
Whatsoever  contravenes  or  violates  these  laws  of  love  must  be 
abolished  by  the  gospel ;  no  reasoning  can  stand  that  disregards 

*  OLSHAUSEN    on    Coloss.    iv.,    1.  commentator  to  be  the  interference  of 

Give  unto  your  servants  that  which  divine  inspiration  in  behalf  of  slaves 

is  just  and  equal     To  avoid  the  in-  with  their  masters,  not  to  give  more 

evitable  conclusion  of  the  abolition  to  one  than  to  another !     If  a  peck  of 

of    slavery  from    this    passage,    01-  meal  a  week  were  the  rule,  the  mas- 

shausen  affirms  that    this   direction  ter  must  not  give  a  peck  and  a  half  to 

"  can  not  mean  equality  with  masters,  any  favored  slave,  for  that  would  not 

for  that  would  be  to  abolish  slavery,  be  just  and  equal  to  the  rest !     So 

which  was  contrary  to  Paul's  inten-  deep  down  into  the  common  sense  as 

tion !      It  means    rather  the    equal  well  as  piety  of  the  church   and  of 

treatment  of  all  the  slaves,  not  pre-  modern   theology  has  the  poison   of 

ferring  one  at  the  expense  of  another."  slavery  infused  itself! 
And  this  is  supposed  by  a  Christian 


INTRODUCTION.  Xvii 

them;  no  piety  is  true  that  does  not  seek  their  perfect  and  com- 
plete fulfillment. 

The  moral  argument,  like  the  legal,  is  against  the  relation  it- 
self, as  intrinsically  unjust,  cruel  and  wicked.  And  the  historical 
and  statistical  developments,  the  argument  from  consequences, 
prove  incontrovertibly  the  disastrous  effect  of  admitting  the  rela- 
tion as  compatible  with  Christianity.  If  in  the  outset  the  piety 
of  the  church  had  faithfully  applied  the  law  of  God,  had  taken 
that  law,  with  its  legitimate,  intended  conclusions  and  conse- 
quences, and  driven  it  against  the  relation  of  slavery,  as  incom* 
patible  with  Christianity,  then  would  slavery  have  been  expelled 
from  the  world  wherever  the  church  was  established.  If  the 
church  had  applied  the  law  of  God  against  slavery  as  against 
murder,  judging  the  relation  of  the  slaveholder  to  the  slave  as  it 
judges  the  relation  of  the  murderer  to  his  victim,  then  it  would 
have  been  as  impossible  for  slavery  to  have  obtained  a  foothold 
in  the  church,  or  a  sanction  in  the  world,  as  for  murder. 

But  the  instant  it  was  admitted  that  the  relation,  being  civil 
and  political,  must  not  be  interfered  with,  and  might  be  inno- 
cently continued,  while  it  was  left  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  so 
called,  to_  abolish  the  reality,  that  instant  the  whole  authority  of 
the  church  against  it  was  paralyzed  ;  for  it  was  manifest  that  the 
reality  of  slavery  consisted  in  the  relation,  and  if  that  were  per- 
mitted and  sanctioned  in  the  word  of  God  as  just,  and  not  to  be 
disturbed,  then  the  reality  was  just  and  permanent  likewise.  Ac- 
cordingly, under  such  treatment,  the  iniquity  held  on,  till  it  not 
only  destroyed  the  Roman  empire,  but  ran  through  the  Middle 
Ages,  prevailing  greatly,  even  in  the  church,  notwithstanding  that 
here  and  there,  as  in  the  cases  of  Augustine  and  Isidore,*  emi- 
nent remonstrances  were  uttered  in  opposition  to  it,  and  now  and 
then  churches  and  monasteries,  and,  in  general,  the  monastic  spirit 
and  rules,  were  set  against  it.f  Nevertheless,  when  it  passed  from 

*  NEAKDER,  Church  Hist.  Bolm's,  Life.  One  of  the  earliest  laws  in  re- 
edit,  vol.  3.  gard  to  it  is  mentioned  by  Eusebius, 

\  EUSEBIUS,  Life  of  Constantino  in  the  life  of  Constantine,  who  enacted 

and  NEANDER,  Memorials  of  Christian  "  that  no  Christian  ahould  remain  in 


XV111 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  form  of  Roman  and  Greek  slavery  into  the  form  of  the  serfage 
of  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages,  the  reality  was  still  that  of  slavery,* 
and  it  was  submitted  to  and  maintained,  even  by  the  church  and 
its  corrupt  Christianity,f  because  the  church  had  never  applied 
the  law  of  God  and  the  gospel  of  Christ  against  the  relation  itself, 


servitude  to  a  Jewish  master,  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  wrong  for  the 
ransomed  of  the  Saviour  to  be  sub- 
jected to  the  yoke  of  slavery  by  a 
people  who  had  slain  the  prophets 
and  the  Lord.  The  slave  was  to  be 
set  at  liberty,  and  the  master  pun- 
ished by  a^ine."  It  is  obvious  that 
such  legislation  did  not  strike  at  the 
relation  or  reality  of  slavery  as  in 
itself  unjust,  and  forbidden  in  God's 
word,  nor  had  the  corrupt  Christianity 
of  that  or  a  later  age  either  the  purity 
or  power  to  enforce  the  word  of  God 
against  it,  or  to  produce  a  legislation 
accordant  with  humanity. 

*  THIERRY,  History  of  the  Norman 
Conquest,  89,  288,  293.  In  the  fam- 
ine in  1070,  "  the  Saxon,  wasted  and 
depressed  by  hunger,  would  come  and 
sell  himself  and  all  his  family  to  per- 
petual slavery."  The  effect  of  slavery 
in  the  depreciation  of  property,  and 
running  of  the  land  to  waste,  was  re- 
markable. "  The  land  on  which  the 
Englishmen  of  exalted  rank  had  lived 
in  plenty,  maintained,  after  the  con- 
quest, only  two  laborers,  poor  and  en- 
slaved, who  scarcely  returned  to  their 
Norman  lord  a  tenth  part  of  the  rev- 
enue of  the  ancient  free  cultivators." 

"About  the  year  1381,  all  those 
who  were  called  bond  in  England, 
that  is,  all  the  cultivators,  were  serfs 
in  body  and  goods ;  the  lord  could 
sell  them,  together  with  their  houses, 
oxen,  children  and  posterity,  which, 
in  the  English  deeds,  waa  expressed 


in  the  following  manner,  Know  that 
I  have  sold  A.  B.,  my  knave,  and  all 
his  offspring,  born,  or  to  be  born." 
The  word  bondage,  in  the  Norman 
tongue,  expressed  at  that  time  all  that 
was  most  wretched  in  the  condition 
of  humanity.  Yet  this  word,  from 
the  Anglo-Danish  word  bond,  meant, 
originally,  a  free  cultivator,  and  joined 
to  the  Saxon  word  hus,  denoted  the 
master  of  the  house,  the  husband,  or, 
in  modern  English,  husband. 

f  GUIZOT,  Hist.  Civilization,  vol.  2, 
in  his  Table  of  the  Councils  of  the 
Gallic  Church  from  the  fourth  to  the 
tenth  century,  refers  to  several  canons 
of  different  councils,  as  in  the  years 
538  and  541,  making  the  above- 
named  distinction  between  Jews  and 
Christians,  doubtless  following  out 
that  very  law  of  Constantino  referred 
to  by  Eusebius,  and  concluding  that 
while  it  was  sinful  for  a  Jew  to  hold 
a  Christian  as  a  slave,  and  an  oppro- 
bium  and  distress  not  to  be  endured 
by  a  Christian,  it  might  be  very  just 
and  proper  for  the  Christians  to  en- 
slave the  Jews.  The  Christian  bish- 
ops are  forbidden  from  restoring  run- 
away Christian  slaves  to  their  Jewish 
masters.  And  in  the  year  567  a  law 
is  quoted  which  declares  that  inas- 
much as  many  persons,  to  the  ruin  of 
their  souls,  have  made  captives  of 
others  by  violence  and  treason,  such 
persons,  if  they  neglect  to  restore  such 
slaves  to  their  freedom,  shall  be  ex- 
communicated. 


INTEODUCTION.  XIX 

of  property  in  man,  the  relation  of  slavcholding,  as  by  the  divine 
judgment  under  all  circumstances  the  guilt  of  man-stealing. 

There  always  followed,  with  the  relation,*  and  grew  out  of  it, 
all  the  excesses,  all  the  cruelties,  all  the  degradations  and  oppres- 
sions, all  the  annihilations  of  right,  and  disregard  of  justice  and 
humanity,f  all  the  treatment,  in  fine,  of  human  beings  as  brutes, 
always  inevitable  on  the  tolerance  and  practice  of  slavery  as  a 
system,  under  whatever  name.J  In  all  ages,  whatever  wickedness 
has  been  passed  into  law,  whatever  has  been  sanctioned  and  de- 
fended by  any  form  of  government,  there  have  always  been  a 
sufficient  number  of  Christians,  so  called,  to  defend  the  divine 
right  of  such  wickedness,  and  give  it  a  respectable  place  and  stand- 
ing in  the  church  of  God.  On  the  other  hand,  God  has  always 
kept  his  witnesses  against  such  inhuman  and  anti-Christian  Chris- 
tianity, and  sometimes  has  so  exalted  them  as  martyrs,  (in  the 
modern  age  from  Latimer  and  Sidney  down  to  John  Brown)  that 
the  light  of  their  burning  sheds  the  radiance  of  God's  own  law  and 
gospel  over  whole  ages,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  excesses  of 
atheism  and  depravity.  "  It  hath  been  ever  hereupon  observed," 
said  one  of  those  noble  martyrs,  "  that  they  who  most  precisely  ad- 
here to  the  laws  of  "God,  are  least  solicitous  concerning  the  com- 
mands of  men,  unless  they  are  well  grounded  ;  and  those  who 


*  GAILLARDIN*.    Histoire  du  Moyen  dom,  was  abolished  in  Sweden.     The 

Age.    Tom.  1,  117.     He  refers  to  a  old  diabolic  feature  always  remained 

law  of  Rotharis,    of  the   Lombards,  with  it,  while   slavery  lasted,  of  the 

which  sets  the  slave  in  the  rank  of  impossibility    of    slaves    contracting 

things,  chattels,  and  treats  the  women  marriage.     A  volume  might  be  writ- 

in  slavery  as  brutes.     "  Met  1'esclave  ten  on  the  infernal  reason  and  philoso- 

au  rang  des  choses,  ct  traite  la  femme  phy  of  this  one  fixture  of  the  great 

esclave  comme  une  vache  ou  uue  ju-  vice. 

ment;  servum  aut  ancillam,  seu  alias         \  THIERRY.      Hist.  Norman   Con- 
res  mobiles."  quest,    288.      WALLON.      Hist.  d'Es- 

•j-  GEIJER.    History  of  the  Swedes,  clavage.    Vol.  2,  ch.  v.,  177.    BECKER. 

ch.   vii,    86.     To   "beat   one   like   a  Gallus,  Slave-family;    and   Charicles, 

slave,"  to  have  "as  little  right  as  a  Exc.  Slaves,  compared  with  BLAIR, 

scourged  house  girl,"  or  female  slave,  Inquiry;  Fuss.    Roman  Antiq.    POT- 

are  expressions  found   in  the  laws.  TER.      Greek  Antiq.    GROTE.     Hist. 

Bat  as  early  as  1335,  serfdom,  or  thral-  Greece,  Vol.  3,  95. 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

most  delight  in  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God,  do  not  only 
subject  themselves  to  Him,  but  are  most  regular  observers  of  the 
just  ordinances  of  man,  made  by  the  consent  of  such  as  are  con- 
cerned, according  to  the  will  of  God."* 

Now  by  the  Word  of  God  we  are  bound  to  meet  and  conquer 
every  thing  that  opposes  itself  to  the  will  of  God  ;  for  the  weapons 
of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal,  but  mighty  through  God  to  the 
pulling  down  of  strongholds;  and  it  is  the  business  of  the  church 
and  ministry  to  wrestle  with  the  Word  of  God  against  the  rulers 
of  the  darkness  of  this  world.  The  relation  of  slaveholding  must 
be  sentenced  by  the  church  as  in  itself  an  immoral  relation,  and 
the  claim  of  property  in  man  must  be  presented  as  it  stands  in 
God's  Word,  as  a  moral  guilt  equivalent  with  the  crime  of  murder. 

It  is  the  great  responsibility  of  the  modern  church,  the  great 
work  before  it,  the  great  honor  and  privilege  offered  to  it  from 
God,  to  turn  the  lightning  of  his  Word  against  this  gigantic 
iniquity  of  the  modern  age,  that,  as  in  the  grand  imagery  of  the 
prophet  Daniel,  "  the  beast  may  be  slain,  and  his  body  destroyed, 
and  given  to  the  burning  flame."  The  conquest  of  this  sin  through 
the  Word  and  Spirit  of  the  living  God,  ministered  by  a  fearless 
church  and  ministry,  would  be  so  celestial  a  triumph,  would  be 
such  a  proof  of  Divine  Inspiration,  such  a  demonstration  of  divine 
power  and  grace,  that  it  would  stir  the  whole  world  as  with  the 
trumpet  of  an  archangel.  Let  the  church  of  God  in  our  country 
assume  this  position  of  authority,  and  exercise  this  power,  and 
straightway  the  Gentiles  would  come  to  her  light,  and  kings  to  the 
brightness  of  her  rising. 

And  it  is  a  terrible  position  which  those  have  taken,  who  stand 
in  the  way  of  such  a  demonstration,  and  refuse  to  admit  the  light 
of  God's  Word  upon  this  great  wickedness.  They  stand  between 
the  world  and  its  salvation.  They  trample  the  world  into  infi- 
delity and  darkness,  for  the  sake  of  supporting  a  despotic,  death- 
dealing,  popular  sin. 

*  ALGERNON  SIDNEY.     Discourses  on  Government,  Vol.  1,  315. 


CHAPTER    I. 

IMPORTANCE  OP  THE  INVESTIGATION. — THE  MOOD  OP  MIND  REQUISITE  FOB  IT. — TUB 
EFFECT  OP  PREJUDICE.— IMPIETY  OF  DESIRING  AND  SEEKING  uf  THE  SCRIPTURES  A 
SANCTION  OP  MEN'S  SINS. — MANUFACTURE  OP  INFIDELITY  BY  TIIE  SANCTION  OP 
SLAVERY. 

A  MORE  solemn  and  important  question  than  that  of  the  ver- 
dict in  the  word  of  God  in  regard  to  slavery,  can  not  occupy 
our  attention.  If  God's  judgment  is  really  revealed  against 
slavery  as  sin,  then  we,  as  a  people,  are  condemned  and  guilty 
beyond  any  other  nation  under  heaven.  The  investigation 
of  the  matter  can  not  but  be  intensely  interesting  to  us  as 
men,  as  citizens,  as  Christians,  to  whom  the  welfare  and  sal- 
vation of  our  country  are  dear.  If  we  dare  oppose  this  giant 
iniquity,  or  hope  for  success  in  the  conflict,  we  must  fight  the 
battle  against  it  by  the  word  of  God.  If  it  be  not  condemned 
there,  it  is  in  vain  that  we  struggle  for  its  overthrow.  If  it 
be  not  condemned  of  God,  men  will  maintain  it,  and  we  have 
no  power  against  it,  nor  any  right  to  denounce  it  as  sin.  One 
side  or  the  other,  it  must  divide  society  into  extreme  parties, 
for  there  is  no  middle  ground,  and  every  man  ought  to  know 
where  he  stands  in  regard  to  it,  and  by  what  authority.  Every 
man  ought  to  take  one  side  or  the  other,  by  the  word  of  God. 
Every  man  will  be  compelled  to  do  this,  sooner  or  later,  and 
the  part  of  wisdom  is  to  take  the  right  position  now,  on  God's 
side,  and  for  God's  truth  and  righteousness,  while  a  battle  can 
be  fought  and  gained  on  these  grounds. 

To  constitute  an  impartial  juror  as  to  the  judgment  of  the 
word  of  God  in  such  a  case,  it  is  not  necessary  that  a  man's 
humane  instincts,  or  preferences  of  liberty,  should  be  denied, 


22  THE   CRIME   OF   SLAVERY   DEMONSTRATED. 

or  abrogated,  or  put  in  abeyance.  It  is  rather  requisite  that 
the  heart  should  guide  tlie  understanding,  and  t:ike,  at  the 
very  outset,  the  side  of  the  oppressed  against  the  oppressor. 
There  should  be,  in  the  first  place,  a  preference  of  freedom 
above  slavery,  and  second,  a  sympathy  in  behalf  of  the  op- 
pressed, and  not  in  favor  of  the  oppressor. 

We  have  sometimes  found  men  whom  we  have  supposed  sin- 
cere in  their  professed  abhorrence  of  slavery,  evidently  bent, 
nevertheless,  on  discovering  something  in  the  Bible  to  shield 
it  from  unlimited  reprobation.  It  has  filled  us  with  astonish- 
ment and  sadness,  on  engaging  in  the  argument,  to  discover  a 
manifest  desire  that  you  may  be  defeated  in  your  endeavor  to 
produce  from  the  sacred  Scriptures  an  indisputable  indictment 
of  slavery  as  sin.  And  even  when  the  demonstration  has  been 
presented,  they  have  resorted  to  sophistry  and  special  pleading 
to  evade  its  power.  Such  men  come  to  the  word  of  God  not 
desiring  to  find  the  verdict  against  slavery,  but  with  prefer- 
ences leaning  in  its  favor,  and  on  the  lookout  for  something  to 
justify  the  oppressor,  rather  than  to  vindicate  and  righten  the 
oppressed. 

This  is  not  a  mood  of  mind  in  which  men  can  possibly  in- 
vestigate fairly.  If  called  to  sit  upon  a  jury,  they  would  be 
peremptorily  and  justly  challenged  as  being  interested  wit- 
nesses and  judges.  The  understanding  is  darkened,  the  judg- 
ment is  bribed,  the  power  of  discernment  is  perverted.  Such 
a  prejudice  is  as  a  strong  .magnet,  or  a  box  of  steel  tools,  close 
by  the  compass,  that  will  turn  a  ship  out  of  her  way,  on  the 
plainest,  smoothest,  easiest  sea  ever  navigated. 

Moreover,  such  a  disposition  of  mind  is  contrary  to  every 
rule  of  investigation  and  of  judgment,  even  where  an  acknowl- 
edged criminal  is  to  be  tried,  and  where  the  doubt,  if  doubt 
there  be,  is  to  go  in  favor  of  humanity,  and  of  the  prisoner  at 
the  bar.  How  much  more  where  the  question  is  as  to  the 
right  of  millions  of  our  fellow-men  to  be  treated  as  freemen 
like  ourselves,  or  their  destination  to  be  held  in  bondage  as 


MENTAL    MOOD    REQUISITE.  23 

felons.  The  doubt  in  such  a  case  must  certainly,  by  all  Chris- 
tian obligation,  by  all  moral  sentiment  and  conscience,  weigh 
in  favor  of  those  held  in  bondage,  and  not  in  favor  of  those 
claiming  the  right  to  enslave  them.  If  we  are  to  remember 
them  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  also  with  them,  and  there  is 
any  doubt  in  regard  to  the  justice  of  their  being  kept  bound, 
we  ought  unquestionably  to  side  with  them,  and  not  with  those 
Avho  bind  them.  A  verdict  for  the  binding  can  not  righteously 
be  rendered,  without  the  clearest,  most  indisputable,  most  un- 
questionable title. 

And  so  with  the  argument  frota  the  Scriptures,  in  which  so 
much  is  involved  besides  the  fate  of  those  held  or  proposed  to 
be  held  in  bondage.  The  slaveholder  must  show  a  clear  title 
to  hold,  and  in  such  a  case  the  doubt  is  fatal  to  his  title.  The 
principle  laid  down  by  Paul  comes  into  play,  and  he  that  doubt- 
eth  is  damned  if  he  eat  this  morsel  with  a  hesitating  conscience, 
because  it  is  not  a  question  of  a  mere  act  of  harmless  self-indul- 
gence, more  or  less,  as  whether  he  shall  have  turkey  or  corned 
beef  for  his  dinner,  whether  he  shall  go  clad  in  broadcloth  or 
sackcloth,  whether  he  shall  eat  two  oranges  or  half  a  dozen  for 
his  dessert,  the  determination  of  which  questions  does  not  at 
all  concern  the  interests  or  rights  of  others,  much  less  violate 
them ;  but  it  is,  whether  he  shall  eat  his  own  dinner  or  steal 
and  consume  that  which  belongs  to  another  man  ;  whether  he 
shall  take  of  his  own  flock  and  his  own  herd  for  his  own  pur- 
poses, or  lay  hands  on  the  little  ewe  lamb  that  is  his  poor 
neighbor's;  nay,  more  than  that,  whether,  in  fact,  he  shall  eat 
a  sheep  that  belongs  to  him,  or  a  man  that  does  not.  He  has 
got  to  settle,  beyond  dispute,  that  slavery,  at  the  present  day 
and  in  our  own  country,  is  sanctioned  of  God,  and  that,  by 
God's  ordinance,  the  slave  he  claims  belongs  to  him,  before  he 
can  take  him. 

Nor  is  it  enough,  if  he  could  prove,  which  he  can  not,  that 
the  practice  of  slavery  was  once  permitted  to  a  particular  peo- 
ple or  a  designated  individual ;  in.  order  to  adopt  it  as  his  own 


24  THE   CEIME   OF   SLAVERY   DEMONSTRATED. 

right,  he  must  show  a  similar  designation  in  his  own  case,  an 
appointment  from  God  for  himself  to  act  as  a  slaveholder. 
For  the  thing  for  which  he  is  seeking  supernatural  sanction, 
being  the  taking  and  holding  of  a  man  as  his  property,  is  not 
only  an  infringement  of  God's  ownership  as  the  Creator,  a  rob- 
bery of  God,  but  also  a  robbery  of  man,  and  the  highest  viola- 
tion of  all  natural  right ;  and  if  not,  if  it  were  naturally  right, 
what  need  to  seek  such  a  supernatural  sanction  ?  We  do  not 
go  to  the  word  of  God  to  ask  whether  we  may  eat  bread,  or 
drink  tea  and  coffee,  and  wear  raiment,  or  build  houses  and  live 
in  them,  or  pay  our  just  debts,  or  burn  wood  or  anthracite  coal 
in  our  fire-places. 

And  the  going  to  God's  word  for  a  sanction  of  what  all  mankind 
feel  to  be  villainy,  is  a  dreadful  sacrilege  and  impiety,  especially 
for  a  professed  Christian.  It  is  worse  iniquity  than  that  of 
forging  the  name  of  your  friend  as  an  indorsement  on  your 
note,  which,  without  that  name,  would  have  been  worthless. 
He,  it  is  true,  is  sure  to  reject  the  note  as  spurious,  and  the 
forgery  will  be  discovered  as  soon  as  the  paper  is  presented 
for  payment,  but,  meanwhile,  what  mischief,  confusion  and 
misery  may  be  the  consequence.  And  suppose  a-  company, 
aware  of  the  existence  of  such  forged  notes,  that  should  com- 
bine to  keep  up  their  credit  in  order  to  profit  by  them,  passing 
them  from  one  to  another,  and  making  the  world  believe  them 
trustworthy,  what  language  could  severely  enough  character- 
ize such  fraud  ?  By  and  by  God  will  protest  the  forgery  of 
his  name  and  authority  on  the  back  of  these  notes  of  hand 
claiming  property  in  human  beings,  and  he  will  search  out  the 
wickedness  for  a  terrible  retribution,  but,  meanwhile,  what 
mischief  and  misery  are  enacted  by  the  forgery !  And  if  a 
company  take  it  up,  and  make  a  business  of  it,  how  wide  and 
dreadful  the  destruction ! 

It  is  like  a  corporation  of  wreckers  destroying  the  lights  on 
a  coast  for  the  sake  of  profit  in  their  piracy.  It  is  as  if  you 
could  put  chemical  poison  into  the  fountain  of  our  sunlight 


MENTAL   MOOD   KEQTJISITE.  25 

for  the  sake  of  a  more  complete  and  rapid  bleaching  process 
in  an  article  of  your  private,  profitable  monopoly  and  manu- 
facture. It  is  as  if  the  physicians  in  a  place,  in  order  to  keep 
up  their  business,  should  poison  the  wells  and  fountains,  or  set 
malaria  in  the  atmosphere  for  the  purpose  of  producing  or 
maintaining  a  chronic  epidemic.  It  is  as  if  you  should  adul- 
terate all  the  flour  of  the  year's  harvest  with  plaster  of  Paris, 
or  even  with  arsenic,  to  make  it  weigh  heavier.  These  frauds 
depreciate  the  genuine  article,  even  if  there  were  no  other 
suffering  or  mischief  from  them. 

Just  so  the  Bible  becomes  a  suspicious  book  under  these 
immoral  operations  conducted  by  virtue  of  its  authority.  Its 
credit  is  diminished  just  as  that  of  a  bank  is  diminished,  when 
a  company  of  forgers  and  counterfeiters  have  succeeded  in 
forcing  into  the  market  a  quantity  of  false  notes  and  counter- 
feits. And  suppose  that,  these  villains  having  been  very  suc- 
cessful in  their  work,  so  as  to  become  a  great  moneyed  power, 
with  much  command  of  the  market,  the  directors  of  the  bank, 
for  fear  of  a  combination  against  their  own  business,  should 
conclude,  instead  of  pi'otesting  the  false  bills,  and  prosecuting 
their  authors,  to  guarantee  them,  and  strike  a  bargain  for  mu- 
tual benefit  and  insurance,  assuming  the  false  in  order  to  gain 
acceptance  for  the  true ;  through  how  many  generations,  or 
in  how  many  nations,  could  such  a  bank  maintain  its  credit  ? 

Now  a  man  coining  to  the  Scriptures,  in  search  of  some  ex- 
cuse of  slavery  there,  comes  despairingly  in  regard  to  every 
other  refuge,  comes  driven  thither  for  a  shield  and  defense 
against  the  condemnation  of  humanity,  comes  acknowledging 
that  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  is  against  it,  and  desiring  to 
disgrace  that  moral  sense  as  a  dangerous  radicalism  and  fanat- 
icism. But  what  a  diabolical  hypocrisy  and  sacrilege  for  a 
man  to  come  to  the  word  of  God,  in  the  hope  of  proving  an 
acknowledged  injustice  and  inhumanity  to  be  no  sin  ;  in  the 
hope  of  finding  some  sanction  and  excuse  for  the  deliberate 
voluntary  protection  and  continuance  of  that  which  is  confessed 

2 


26  THE    CKIME    OP    SLAVERY   DEMONSTRATED. 

to  be  a  vast  evil !  What  shall  we  say  as  to  the  moral  enormity 
of  a  Christian  man's  sympathies  being  in  favor  of  the  sin,  and 
against  the  condemnation  of  it,  against  the  finding  of  a  verdict 
of  such  condemnation  hi  the  Scriptures. 

The  moral  sense  of  mankind  being  against  slavery,  and  there 
being  something  in  the  heart  and  conscience  of  every  inves- 
tigator of  the  subject,  which  tells  him  that  it  certainly  is  not 
one  of  the  Christian  graces,  and  it  being  indisputable  that  the 
world  regard  it  as  selfishness  and  oppression,  every  Christian 
man  might  be  supposed  to  hope  that  the  book  which  he  con- 
siders and  teaches  to  be  the  only  written  revelation  from  Je- 
hovah, the  only  infaUible  guide  as  to  morality  and  religion, 
will  be  found  so  clearly  on  the  side  of  justice  and  humanity, 
as  to  leave  no  doubt  what  is  justice  and  humanity ;  and  that, 
when  God  has  laid  down  the  great  rule,  Whatsoever  ye  would 
tfiat  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them,  he  will 
not  be  found  sanctioning  that  which  is  the  completest  violation 
*>f  that  rule.  One  would  think  that  the  sympathies  of  every 
true  Christian  would  lead  him  to  desire  a  verdict  in  the  Scrip- 
tures in  behalf  of  freedom  and  against  slavery,  and  that  he 
would  come  to  the  Bible,  not  to  find  some  ground  for  defend- 
ing slavery  from  the  spontaneous  and  all  but  universal  repro- 
bation of  mankind,  or  some  apology  for  holding  human  beings 
in  bondage,  or  some  protection  of  a  system  admitted  to  be 
the  source  and  concatenation  of  boundless  crime  and  misery, 
but  some  irresistible  weapons  for  its  overthrow.  How  can  it 
be,  that  any  man  should  not  come  with  a  mind  open  to  con- 
viction, and  a  heart  ready  to  hail  the  condemnation  of  such  a 
system,  instead  of  being  drawn  by  the  argument  like  a  bul- 
lock to  the  slaughter  ?  We  have  sometimes  been  amazed  to 
meet  with  an  evident  disappointment  in  the  minds  of  professed 
Christians,  on  having  it  demonstrated  to  them  that  there  was 
nothing  in  favor  of  slavery  in  the  word  of  God ;  the  admission 
has  been  extorted,  unwilling,  and  the  acknowledgment  re- 
sisted and  evaded  every  step  of  the  way. 


MENTAL    MOOD    REQUISITE.  27 

Any  thing  miraculous  in  God's  word,  we  can  believe,  be- 
cause its  morality  is  so  heavenly,  because  the  revelation  is  for 
man's  good,  and  tends  to  make  a  heaven  upon  earth ;  but  it 
is  impossible  to  believe  an  institution  that  grows  out  of  theft, 
cruelty,  and  murder,  and  perpetuates  all  those  iniquities ;  an 
institution  which  is  the  climax  and  support  of  all  villainy,  to 
have  come  down  from  God. 

The  book  being  a  transcript  of  God's  holiness,  we  must  be- 
lieve it  to  have  come  from  him,  for  without  it,  and  before  it,  men 
did  not  know  God  ;  but  the  moment  we  should  find  it  to  be 
a  transcript,  apology  and  sanction  of  men's  vices,  we  must  in- 
evitably reject  and  despise  it.  It  is  to  be  supposed  that  every 
true  Christian  would  desire  to  remove  every  shade  of  doubt 
or  darkness  cast  upon  the  holy  Scriptures,  every  cloud  that 
dims  the  brightness  of  their  evidence  as  the  word  of  God, 
every  barrier  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  against  the  clear 
shining  of  that  evidence  :  "  Thy  word  is  very  pure,  therefore 
thy  servant  loveth  it."  You  do  not  desire  to  find  adultery 
sanctioned  in  the  word  of  God,  nor  forgery,  nor  murder. 

If  the  moral  delinquencies  of  the  Koran  and  the  book  of 
the  Mormons  are  admitted  to  be  insuperable  objections  against 
any  supposition  of  those  books  being  from  God,  so  as  to  take 
away  all  obligation  upon  any  person  even  to  examine  their 
claims,  would  not  the  sanction  of  human  slavery,  as  known 
by  its  fruits,  and  for  the  sake  of  its  fruits,  much  rather  release 
a  man  from  any  such  obligation  ?  Let  a  man  know  what 
slavery  is — its  origin,  its  results,  and  the  means  by  which  it  is 
sustained  and  propagated — and  then  tell  him  that  sucJi  as  it  is, 
it  is  supported  and  commanded  in  this  book,  and  would  he  not 
have  reason  to  say,  "  This  being  the  case,  I  am  not  bound  to 
examine  any  farther.  I  know  that  this  book  can  not  be  from 
God  ?» 

There  are  things  in  the  Bible  which  men  wrest,  not  for  the 
sake  of  good,  but  for  evil,  and  for  their  own  destruction  ;  and 
such  are  the  texts  which  they  have  endeavored  to  torture 


28 


THE    CRIME    OF    SLAVERY    DEMONSTRATED. 


into  the  likeness  of  some  permission  of  this  sin.  They  might 
as  well  plead,  while  keeping  a  class  of  men,  for  their  own  profit, 
ground  down  and  debased  in  an  employment  which  would 
inevitably  make  them  cruel,  profane,  insensible,  and  reckless, 
that  they  were  sanctioned  in  so  doing  by  the  passage  which 
says  that  God  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart.  The  men,  ministers, 
and  churches,  who  plead  Scripture  as  the  shield  and  sanction 
of  slavery,  are  wholesale  manufacturers  of  infidelity.* 


*  These  errors  and  immoralities  of 
opinion  and  of  practice  have  been 
extended  and  perpetuated  even 
through  the  medium  of  books  pre- 
pared for  children,  and  books  of 
piety.  Take  the  following  for  one 
example,  by  the  American  Sunday 
School  Union. 

"  Slavery  seems  to  have  existed 
before  the  flood.  Noah  speaks  of  it 
as  a  thing  well  known.  Among  the 
ancient  patriarchs  it  was  very  com- 
mon. The  servants,  of  whom  we 
hear  iu  the  history  of  their  times, 
were  properly  slaves,  who  might  be 
bought  and  sold  without  any  regard 
to  their  own  will.  Some  of  the 
richer  shepherds,  like  Abraham  and 
Job,  appear  to  have  had  thousands 
of  them  belonging  to  their  house- 
holds." 

This  passage  occurs  in  a  work  by 
Rev.  John  W.  Nevin,  D.  D.,  entitled, 
"  Summary  of  Biblical  Antiquities, 
for  the  use  of  Schools,  Bible  Classes 
and  Families."  Every  sentence  in 
the  paragraph  is  the  statement  of  an 
absolutely  false  assertion,  even  from 
the  first,  for  not  a  word  nor  a  hint  is  to 
be  found  in  the  Bible  concerning 
slavery  before  the  flood.  Yet  these 
falsehoods  are  for  the  instruction  of 
children  I 


In  a  valuable  work  on  the  Legal 
Rights  of  "Women,  by  E.  D.  Mans- 
field, the  writer  declares  that  Hebrew 
wives  were  bought  with  money  or 
produce,  and  that  this  was  the  con- 
sequence of  the  right  of  the  father  to 
sell  his  children  as  slaves  I  He  refers 
to  Michaelis  for  proof.  Yet  the 
thought  hardly  seems  to  have  sug- 
gested itself  how  dreadful  a  reproach 
this  throws  upon  the  Bible,  and  how 
impossible  it  is  to  maintain  as  a  di- 
vine revelation  a  book  which  could 
be  proved  to  have  permitted  and  en- 
joined the  traffic  in  human  beings, 
and  the  selling  of  children  by  their 
parents  as  slaves !  CALJIET,  and  the 
Encyclopedias  generally,  have  circu- 
lated the  same  error.  REES  is  an 
honorable  exception. 

The  same  monstrous  assertion  we 
find  transferred  to  the  pages  of  the 
Commercial  Gazetteer,  published  by 
the  Harpers,  and  there  also  we  are 
referred  to  Michaelis,  as  the  authority, 
being  informed  that  in  Judea,  and  in 
Rome  alike,  parents  had  the  power 
of  selling  their  children  for  slaves  1 
See  the  corrections  of  Michaelis,  by 
SAALSCHTJTZ,  Das  Mas.  Recht,  Laws 
of  Moses,  Vol.  H. 


CHAPTER    II. 

VARIETIES  OP  TUB  DEMONSTRATION  AGAINST  SLAVERY. — HISTOBIC,  LEGAL  AN> 
SOCIAL  COMBINATIONS  OF  THE  ARGUMENT. 

THE  argument  against  slavery,  both  from  the  Old  and  Ne\r 
Testament,  is  various  and  ample,  amounting  to  a  demonstra- 
tion of  God's  abhorrence  of  this  sin,  as  palpable  and  cogent 
as  the  demonstration  against  idolatry  itself.  We  have,  first, 
the  historic  record  of  a  state  of  society  appointed  of  God,  in 
which  there  is  no  trace  of  slavery  to  be  found ;  the  first  and 
only  indisputable  case  of  it,  or  of  men's  availing  themselves 
of  its  existence,  being  marked  as  a  case  of  man-stealing,  ag- 
gravated and  monstrous. 

Second,  we  have  the  record  of  God's  reprobation  of  such  an 
approximation  to  slavery  as  was  witnessed  in  the  oppression 
of  the  Hebrews  by  the  Egyptians,  and  of  God's  vengeance 
against  their  oppressors  for  such  a  crime. 

This  is  accompanied  and  followed,  thirdly,  by  a  perpetual 
injunction  against  ever  imposing  on  any  other  race  any  similar 
bondage ;  and  we  have  a  series  of  the  divine  precepts  for  the 
humane  and  generous  treatment  of  the  stranger,  the  outcast, 
the  unprotected  and  oppressed,  and  repeated  warnings  from 
God  never  to  treat  any  human  beings,  but  especially  the  weak 
and  friendless,  with  unkindness ;  a  fortiori,  the  culmination 
of  cruelty  and  oppression  in  the  system  of  chattel  slavery 
much  more  intensely  reprobated  and  forbidden  of  God. 

Fourth,  we  have  a  series  of  explicit  divine  statutes,  appoint- 
ing the  system  of  domestic  service,  marking  its  bounds,  guard- 
ing against  the  possibility  of  its  passing  into  oppression  or 


30  VARIETIES    OF   THE 

slavery,  protecting  the  rights  of  the  servants  as  carefully  as 
those  of  the  masters,  forbidding  servants  to  be  sold  as  slaves, 
and  rendering  the  establishment  of  slavery  impossible. 

Fifth,  we  have  separate,  fundamental,  unlimited  statutes, 
condemning  with  the  penalty  of  death  that  crime  which  is  the 
origin  and  essence  of  slavery,  man-stealing,  holding,  and  sell- 
ing, and  forbidding,  any  restoration  to  his  master  of  any  ser- 
vant a  fugitive  from  his  master.  The  conclusion  from  these 
statutes  is  unavoidable,  that  the  claim  of  property  in  man  is 
not  only  without  foundation  in  justice,  but  is  a  crime  equiva- 
lent in  guilt  to  that  of  murder. 

Sixth,  we  have  historical  and  legal  decisions  and  precedents, 
growing  oat  of  these  statutes,  and  settling  their  interpretation. 

Seventh,  we  have  great  and  solemn  recorded  cases  of  the 
divine  wrath  in  consequence  of  the  violation  of  those  statutes, 
and  the  divine  judgment  against  the  transgressors. 

Eighth,  we  have  the  curse  of  God  attached  to  unjust  law, 
and  men  forbidden  to  obey  it. 

Ninth,  we  have  the  commentaries  of  the  prophets  upon 
the  laws,  in  a  body  of  denunciations  against  oppression  and 
slavery,  and  injunctions  of  freedom,  and  demands  of  justice 
and  benevolence  towards  the  oppressed,  the  like  of  which  are 
not  to  be  found  the  world  over,  nor  ever  existed  in  the  juris- 
prudence or  literature  of  any  nation  ;  and  which,  if  slavery 
had  been  sanctioned  in  the  law  of  God,  would  stand  forth  in 
glaring  contradiction  and  condemnation  of  that  law. 

Tenth,  we  have  in  other  forms  the  principles  of  the  morality 
of  love,  of  which  that  law  is  the  exponent,  and  on  which  it  is 
grounded,  and  descriptions  of  the  actual  life  of  social  freedom, 
benevolence  and  prosperity  which  it  produces,  in  such  his- 
tories as  those  of  the  books  of  Ruth  and  Job. 

Eleventh,  we  have  terrible  and  oft  repeated  curses  pro- 
nounced against  both  the  act  and  the  system  of  taking  men's 
labor  without  giving  them  wages ;  curses  without  any  restric- 
tion, and  belonging  logically,  morally  and  expressly  to  any 


DEMONSTRATION    AGAINST   SLAVERY.  31 

system  of  which  this  wickedness  is  a  fundamental  element,  as 
of  slavery  it  is. 

Twelfth,  we  have  God's  requisitions  upon  men  to  protect, 
defend  and  restore  such  as  were  defrauded  of  their  freedom 
and  their  rights,  and  his  demand,  as  in  Isaiah,  that  every  yoke 
be  broken,  and  the  oppressed  set  free ;  and  to  this  may  be 
added  the  forms  of  prayer  for  deliverance  from  the  oppres- 
sion of  man,  that  so  we  may  keep  God's  statutes,  and  the  forms 
of  promise,  that  in  the  coming  of  God's  kingdom,  he  will  save 
the  children  of  the  needy  and  break  in  pieces  the  oppressor  ; 
a  thing  which  he  could  not  do,  if  at  the  same  time  the  severest 
possible  oppression  had  been  sanctioned  by  his  law. 

In  all  these  ways,  the  consummation  of  proof,  as  well  as 
its  variety,  is  perfect.  Nor  is  the  interpretation  of  particular 
statutes  left  to  opinion  or  to  reasoning  merely,  but  God  takes 
the  broken  statute,  for  example,  and  shows  its  meaning,  if 
there  could  be  any  doubt  in  regard  to  it,  by  pronouncing  sen- 
tence, and  executing  the  penalty.  How  dare  any  man  assert 
that  God  ever  sanctioned  slavery  in  his  statutes,  when  the  his- 
torical record  stands  undisputed  and  indisputable,  of  his  public 
indictment  and  punishment  of  the  whole  nation  for  the  intro- 
duction and  attempted  establishment  of  slavery,  contrary  to 
his  statutes  ?  God  himself,  a  thousand  years  after  the  framing 
of  the  statutes,  calls  the  people  into  court,  states  again  tho 
substance  and  meaning  of  the  statutes,  reads  the  indictment 
for  their  transgression  of  them,  and  promulgates  and  inflicts 
the  sentence;  and  the  one  crime  is  that  of  slavery.  The 
comparison  of  the  thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Jeremiah  with  the 
twenty-second  of  Ezekiel,  and  the  examination  of  concurrent 
and  immediately  succeeding  circumstances  and  events  prove 
this,  and  fasten  the  application  with  an  awful  emphasis  and 
solemnity. 

"  I  made  a  covenant  of  freedom  with  your  fathers,  freedom 
not  for  yourselves  merely,  but  for  your  servants,  to  all  time, 
that  ye  should  proclaim  liberty  for  them  and  not  slavery ;  but 


32  VARIETIES    OF   THE 

ye  have  rebelled  against  my  statutes,  and  brought  your  ser- 
vants into  subjection,  at  your  pleasure,  and  not  theirs.  Ye 
have  not  proclaimed  liberty,  every  man  to  his  neighbor  and 
his  brother,  therefore  I  proclaim  liberty  for  you,  saith  the 
Lord,  to  the  sword,  to  the  pestilence  and  the  famine,  and  ye 
shah1  be  removed  into  all  nations  of  the  earth."  That  was  the 
sentence,  and  immediately  it  was  executed,  almost  as  swiftly 
as  the  bolt  follows  the  lightning.  This  is  one  example  of  God's 
own  interpretation  of  his  own  laws.  And  so  we  are  confront- 
ed from  generation  to  generation  in  God's  word,  with  furrows 
of  light,  mountain  ranges  of  light,  precedents  like  volcanoes, 
where  the  flame  and  the  red-hot  lava  forbid  all  possibility  of 
mistake. 

Thus  the  history  grows  out  of  the  laws,  and  is  a  commen- 
tary upon  them ;  and  every  lawyer,  and  every  historic  scholar 
knows  the  value  of  such  testimony.  If  any  old  English  statutes 
of  Edward  the  Fourth's  reign,  for  example,  were  in  doubt,  and 
a  case  can  be  found  two  or  three  hundred  years  afterwards, 
clearly  attested,  in  which  the  statute  in  doubt  was  applied,  and 
judgment  issued,  and  sentence  executed  for  its  violation,  that 
would  settle  the  matter ;  that  is  the  very  perfection  of  inter- 
pretation. And  thus,  in  regard  to  God's  own  law,  God'sjudy- 
ments  are  said  by  him  to  be  as  the  light  that  goeth  forth. 
And  such  is  the  interpretation  of  the  Mosaic  statutes  by  the 
sacred  history. 

And  negatively  there  is  the  same  light  as  positively.  For 
xample,  in  the  statutes  we  have  man-selling  forbidden  as  well 
as  man-stealing;  consequently,  in  the  history  there  are  no 
instances  ever  of  any  sale  of  human  beings,  any  traffic  in  slaves. 
In  the  statutes  again  we  have  a  law  forbidding  the  restoring  of 
fugitive  servants  to  their  masters ;  consequently,  in  the  his- 
tory we  have  servants  running  away,  but  never  any  cases  of 
their  restoration,  nor  any  signs  of  marshals  or  judges  of  pro- 
bate appointed  for  slave  commissioners,  nor  any  indications  of 
the  institution  of  bloodhounds  to  hunt  for  fugitives,  nor  court 


DEMONSTRATION  AGAINST   SLAVERY.  33 

houses  with  chains  for  their  trial,  nor  jails  to  imprison  them, 
nor  arrangements  for  having  them  sold  to  pay  their  jail  fees. 
All  the  conditions  and  junctures  of  society  that  would  inevi- 
tably have  grown  out  of  the  existence  and  influence  of  slavery, 
had  it  been  sanctioned  by  law,  are  wanting ;  the  inevitable 
consequences  of  slave  legislation,  proving  its  reality  and  its 
character,  are  not  to  be  found.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  fix- 
tures of  society  are  found,  and  all  the  events  happen,  that 
would  naturally  grow  out  of  a  state  of  freedom,  the  result  of 
a  system  of  laws  intended  for  the  perpetual  establishment  of 
freedom,  and  the  prevention,  suppression  and  extinction  of 
slavery. 

Thirteenth.  Coming  down  to  the  New  Testament,  we  find, 
first  of  all,  the  illustration  of  this  correspondence  between  in- 
stitutions, and  the  laws  that  have  produced  them,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  slavery  from  the  land  and  nation  governed  by  the 
legislation  of  the  Old  Testament.  We  find  that  in  Judea 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  slavery  in  the  social  life  and  cus- 
toms of  the  Hebrews.  This  iniquity  does  not  appear,  as  inev- 
itably it  must  have  done,  had  it  been  a  fixture  in  the  divine 
laws  for  the  Jewish  people.  Had  it  been  a  domestic  institu- 
tion ordained  of  God,  the  whole  land  would  have  been,  in  the 
progress  of  so  many  ages,  overrun  with  slaves  ;  the  whole 
nation  would  have  been  crowded  with  them.  They  would 
have  constituted  the  great  article  of  wealth  and  luxury. 
There  would  have  been  slave  markets  in  every  city ;  and  in 
Jerusalem,  in  the  very  temple,  not  only  those  that  sold  doves, 
but  those  that  sold  slaves  would  have  had  their  places  for 
such  merchandise — their  stalls  for  traffic  in  human  flesh. 

For  either  it  is  the  worst  of  all  theft,  or  the  most  sacred  of 
all  property.  But  there  is  not  the  remotest  indication  of 
slavery,  or  involuntary  servitude,  or  the  selling  and  buying  of 
men  as  property.  On  the  contrary,  every  presentation  of 
manners,  every  picture  of  society,  and  the  very  parables  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  show  the  customs  of  free  voluntary  service ; 


34  VAEIETIES    OF  THE 

as,  for  example,  the  parable  of  the  householder  and  his  hired 
laborers,  in  the  twentieth  of  Matthew.  Five  several  times 
the  householder  goes  forth  to  look  up  and  hire  his  laborers, 
on  a  free  mutual  contract  for  wages,  and  there  is  no  intimation 
that  there  is  such  an  accursed  thing  as  slavery,  instead  of  free 
labor,  in  existence.  So  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son, 
"  How  many  hired  servants  of  my  father's,"  etc.  "  Make  me 
as  one  of  thy  hired  servants."  And  so  in  the  very  next  chap- 
ter, Luke  xvi.  13,  "  No  servant  can  serve  two  masters,  for 
either  he  will  hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other,  or  else  he  will 
hold  to  the  one,  and  despise  the  other." 

Fourteenth.  But,  more  particularly  and  expressly,  we  have 
the  law  of  love  repromulgated  by  our  Saviour,  "  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  and  "  Whatsoever  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them,"  with  such 
commentaries  thereon,  as  to  fasten  its  application  particularly 
to  the  oppressed  African  race  as  claiming  our  compassion.  We 
have  the  truth  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man  proclaimed 
anew,  and  the  oneness  of  all  races  in  Christ  so  insisted  on, 
that  in  their  treatment  there  shall  neither  be  Jew  nor  Gentile, 
bond  nor  free. 

Fifteenth,  we  have  the  distinct  averment  that  if  a  man 
be  converted  to  Christ  in  a  state  of  bondage  to  an  earthly 
master,  and  may  be  made  free,  he  is  by  all  means  to  choose 
his  freedom  ;  the  logical  consequence  of  which,  on  the  other 
side,  is  the  duty  of  his  master,  as  a  Christian,  to  set  him  free. 

Sixteenth,  we  have,  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  ex- 
press injunction  to  remember  them  that  are  in  bonds,  as  bound 
also  with  them ;  intimating  an  habitual  consideration  of  such 
bondage  as  the  greatest  of  calamities  and  wrongs  upon  those 
who  endured  it,  who  were  to  be  made  unceasingly  the  sub- 
jects of  prayer  and  of  sympathy;  but  if  so,  the  conclusion  is 
absolute  of  its  being  a  sin  against  God  for  any  person  under 
the  light  of  his  word  to  hold  any  fellow-creature  in  such  bond- 
age. 


DEMONSTRATION   AGAINST   SLAVERY.  35 

Seventeenth,  we  have,  in  the  epistle  to  Timothy,  a  direct 
reference  to  the  fundamental  Hebrew  law  against  men-stealers, 
as  a  law  of  God,  in  full  force  under  the  gospel,  with  an  in- 
junction to  apply  it  with  and  by  the  gospel ;  and  assuredly, 
in  such  application,  whatever  law  of  justice  and  mercy  was 
given  under  the  old  dispensation,  had  an  enlarged  significance 
and  scope,  and  a  more  direct  and  intense  authority  under  the 
new.  Nothing  in  this  respect  was  taken  from  the  new,  but 
much  was  added. 

Eighteenth.  Then  in  the  epistle  to  Philemon,  we  find  the 
Apostle  Paul,  with  that  old  fundamental  fugitive  slave  law 
before  him  for  his  guide,  acting  on  its  principles ;  first,  giving 
to  Onesimus,  a  runaway  slave,  a  shelter  with  him  till  he  be- 
came converted,  and  then,  with  his  own  consent — and  not  till 
then — sending  him  back  to  Philemon,  with  the  distinct  aver- 
ment that  he  was  now  no  longer  a  servant,  but  a  brother  be- 
loved ;  and  to  guard  against  the  interpretation  of  his  being 
merely  a  Christian  brother,  but  still  a  slave,  it  was  carefully 
added  that  he  was  a  brother,  not  only  in  the  Lord,  but  in  the 
flesh,  no  longer  a  servant  in  either  way ;  and  the  confident 
belief  was  added  that  Philemon,  as  a  Christian,  recognizing 
the  same  law  of  duty  that  Paul  recognized,  would  go  even 
farther  than  Paul  chose  to  suggest,  in  the  fulfillment  of  his 
whole  duty  towards  this  liberated  brother. 

Nineteenth.  In  several  epistles  we  have  the  command, 
"Masters,  give  unto  your  servants  that  which  is  just  and 
equal ;"  an  injunction  proving  that  no  such  class  of  servants  was 
admissible,  was  to  be  supposed  existing  in  the  household  of 
any  Christian  master,  as  were  considered  property — no  class 
that  were  not  parties  to  a  compact  of  service  for  wages  re- 
ceived; proving  that  all  servants  under  the  Christian  law. 
were  servants  on  wages,  consequently  not  possible  to  have 
been  slaves,  but  their  masters  subject  to  the  rules  for  the 
treatment  of  servants  laid  down  in  the  holy  Scriptures,  which 
forbade  any  other  than  free  paid  service. 


36  'VARIETIES    OF    THE 

Twentieth,  we  have  the  institution  of  Christian  churches, 
with  their  equality  of  membership  and  citizenship  in  Christ, 
without  respect  to  persons,  or  to  class,  caste,  or  color ;  and 
in  the  church  we  have  the  whole  family  relationship  renewed, 
and  so  sanctified  in  Christ,  together  with  the  reciprocal  duties 
of  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  so  distinctly  af- 
firmed for  all  mankind,  irrespective  of  classes,  as  to  render 
the  system  of  slavery  impossible,  without  defying  the  author- 
ity of  God,  and  violating  every  one  of  those  sanctities :  so 
that,  for  the  possibility  of  the  preservation  of  God's  ordinances, 
slavery  must  be  abolished,  the  condition  of  slaves,  and  the 
system  of  slave  laws  and  usages,  being  incompatible  with 
the  keeping  of  the  divine  commandments,  and  the  prevalence 
of  the  system  impossible,  without  the  defilement,  degradation, 
and  at  length  abolition  of  the  most  precious  gifts  of  Heaven 
to  man. 

Twenty-first.  Take,  for  example,  the  sacrament  of  marriage, 
with  its  wondrous  transfiguration  in  such  holy  loveliness  and 
glory,  in  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  where  the  sacredness 
and  closeness  of  the  union  between  the  husband  and  the  wife 
is  likened  to  the  union  between  Christ  and  the  church.  The 
passage  begins,  "  Wives,  submit  yourselves  unto  your  own  hus- 
bands, as  unto  the  Lord,"  and  it  concludes,  "  Let  every  one  of 
you  in  particular  so  love  his  wife,  even  as  himself,  and  the  wife 
see  that  she  reverence  her  husband."*  Now  let  us  apply  this 
to  slavery,  and  we  see  instantly  that  for  the  miserable  creatures 
under  the  crushing  despotism  of  this  damning  sin,  it  is  impos- 
sible ;  this  blessedness  was  never  made  for  slaves ;  from  the 
paradise  of  marriage  they  are  eternally  excluded  ;  and  slavery 
does  not  need  a  stronger  demonstration  of  its  guilt,  than  is 
presented  by  this  terrific  impossibility  of  the  realization  of 
that  holiness  and  happiness  appointed  of  God  for  the  whole 
race  redeemed  in  Christ  Jesus.  Husbands,  love  your  wives ; 
wives,  be  obedient  to  your  husbands ;  as  the  church  is  subject 
*  Eph.  v.,  22,  23. 


DEMONSTRATION    AGAINST    SLAVERY.  37 

to  Christ,  so  let  the  wives  be  to  their  own  husbands  in  every 
thing.  Conceive  of  this  as  addressed  to  the  millions  of  Amer- 
ican chattels  reduced  to  a  state  of  concubinage  for  slave- 
breeding,  and  instantly  one  of  the  divinest  chapters  in  the 
word  of  God  becomes  a  hideous  and  horrible  satire. 

Twenty-second.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  instructions 
to  parents  and  children,  and  of  the  reciprocal  privileges  and 
duties  of  Christian  nurture  and  obedience  ;  including  the  or- 
dinance of  the  baptism  of  children,  and  the  responsibility  of 
their  consecration  to  God.  The  whole  household  relationship  is 
swept  away,  and  the  very  existence  of  the  family,  as  God  has 
appointed  it,  is  rendered  impossible  by  a  system  that  forbids 
marriage  ;  forbids  children  to  obey  their  parents ;  makes  both 
classes  the  mere  property  of  the  master,  and  forbids  parents 
from  training  up  their  children  under  any  other  nurture  and 
admonition  than  that  of  the  slave-market  and  the  auction 
block,  in  the  most  absolute  chattelism  the  world  ever  saw. 
"We  need,  therefore,  no  other  argument  to  show  the  infernal 
nature  of  this  American  system  of  Christian  slaveholding 
than  such  a  trial  of  it  on  the  word  of  God.  It  is  like  the 
torture  of  the  boots,  the  thumb-screws,  and  the  wedges  on 
the  human  system.  You  might  as  well  say  that  your  lungs 
were  intended  to  breathe  fire  or  the  fumes  of  sulphuric  acid, 
or  that  you  can  live  upon  the  oil  of  vitriol,  or  that  the  crys- 
tals of  prussic  acid  were  appointed  for  the  strengthening  of 
your  stomach,  as  that  this  dreadful  scheme  of  iniquity  grows 
out  of  Christianity,  or  can  possibly  be  consistent  with  it.  On 
the  contrary,  it  destroys  for  its  victims  every  ordinance  of 
Christianity,  and  every  possibility  of  participation  in  its  bless- 
ings ;  and  it  must  corrupt  every  element  of  true  religion  in 
the  hearts  of  those  who  practice  and  defend  the  system.  It 
creates  one  class  of  selfish  despots,  for  whom  the  word  of 
God,  so  frightfully  perverted,  is  made  just  only  a  minister  to 
their  avarice  and  cruelty  ;  at  whose  will,  and  for  the  conven- 
ience of  their  lusts  and  interests,  all  the  rights  and  claims  of 


38  VABTETIES  OF  THE  DEMONETISATION,  ETC. 

others,  even  to  the  elementary  privileges  of  Christianity,  are 
denied  and  refused,  or  parceled  out  at  man's  bidding,  not 
God's.  It  degrades  and  distorts  another  class  into  a  set  of 
creatures  for  whom  the  instructions  hi  the  word  of  God  are 
inadmissible,  or  if  any  of  its  privileges  are  offered,  it  is  only 
at  the  will  of  the  masters,  under  whose  legislation  and  ad- 
ministration, Christianity  itself  becomes  a  perversion  of  the 
attributes  of  God,  a  sneering,  tantalizing  mockery  and  tor- 
ture, a  fable  of  charity,  but  a  reality  of  prejudice,  injustice 
and  cruelty. 

Now  we  may  not  pass  from  this  sketch  of  the  course  of 
argument  in  the  word  of  God  against  the  sin  of  slavery,  with- 
out remarking  how  eminently  and  closely  scriptural  it  is  as 
a  subject  of  investigation,  how  appropriate  as  a  subject  for 
preaching  and  teaching,  through  what  highways  of  light,  of 
divine  instruction,  of  the  glorious  revelation  of  God's  attri- 
butes and  ways,  and  what  disclosures  of  duty  and  happiness, 
it  leads  the  mind ;  so  that,  notwithstanding  the  wicked,  in- 
human prejudice  against  having  the  claims  of  the  oppressed 
presented  from  the  word  of  God,  and  the  iniquity  of  such  op- 
pression demonstrated,  no  subject  could  be  more  interesting 
and  enlivening,  and  none  more  suitable  for  the  Sabbath  and 
the  pulpit.* 

*  See  GRANVILLE  SHARPE,  Doclara-  laws  of  God,  and  whatsoever  is  con- 
tion  of  Natural  Right,  179.  And  trary  to  any  of  these  is  malum  in  se, 
ABBE  RAYNAL,  Histoire  Des  Indes,  which  no  authority  on  earth  can  make 
compared  with  GROTIUS  and  others,  lawful."  "  Non  sunt  statuta,  sed  cor- 
showing  that  the  Law  of  Nations  and  ruptelce,  the  laws  against  Natural 
of  Natural  Right  runs  parallel  with  Right  ARE  NOT  LAWS,  BUT  CORRUP- 
this  whole  line  of  argument  from  the  TIONS,"  which  the  will  of  God  re- 
Scriptures.  "  The  Law  of  Nature  is  quires  every  man  to  disobey.  COKE, 
founded  on  the  primary  and  eternal  BRACTON,  and  others,  cited  by  SHARPE. 


CHAPTER    III. 

HISTORIC  INVESTIGATION.— THE  HOUSEHOLD  OP  ABRAHAM. — No  SLAVERY  IN  nis 
FAMILY. — PKOOF  FROM  TUB  HEBREW. 

OUR  historic  reseai'ch  begins  beyond  the  peiiod  of  law, 
amidst  the  social,  habitual  life,  manners  and  morals,  out  of 
which  law  ordinarily  grows,  arid  of  which  it  is  at  once  the 
safeguard  and  the  assurance.  We  commence  with  actual  life 
in  the  society  of  which  Noah  and  his  family  were  the  consti- 
tuted head.  There  was  nothing  but  freedom — nothing  of  slav- 
ery there.  The  second  great  experiment  of  God  with  hu- 
manity, the  second  great  trial  of  the  human  race,  excluded 
slavery,  for  God  would  not  permit  it  to  be  set  up  as  one  of  the 
elements  of  the  social  state.  If  it  had  been  in  existence  as 
one  of  the  crimes  of  the  antediluvian  world,  God  would  not 
suffer  its  inequality,  its  injustice,  its  oppression,  in  any  shape, 
in  any  approximation,  to  be  admitted  into  the  ark ;  and  the 
second  commencement  of  a  world  of  human  beings  was  solely 
with  freemen.  God's  covenant  with  Noah  and  his  sons  was 
a  covenant  with  freemen  for  perpetual  generations ;  and  the 
great  statute  (Gen.  ix.  6),  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by 
man  shall  his  blood  be  shed,  for  in  the  image  of  God  made  he 
man,  excludes  the  possibility  of  property  in  man,  making  the 
race  equal,  and  in  all  its  varieties  and  generations  coequal 
partners  in  the  same  rights. 

Noah  lived,  after  the  flood,  three  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
and  up  to,  if  not  after,  the  birth  of  Abraham,  nearly  cotemporary 
with  him,  in  whom  we  investigate  the  patriarchal  system  of 
society.  From  the  flood  to  the  division  of  tongues,  and  the 


40  HISTOBIC    INVESTIGATION. 

scattering  abroad  of  the  nations,  admit  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years ;  this  would  leave  from  the  confusion  of  tongues  to  the 
lifetime  of  Abraham  a  couple  of  centuries.  This  is  the  only 
interval  in  which  the  inequality  and  oppression  of  slavery  can 
be  supposed  to  have  had  any  commencement.  But  there  is 
no  indication  of  it  whatever,  and  in  the  very  nature  and  ne- 
cessity of  the  freedom  of  society  at  that  time,  its  existence 
would  have  been  impossible ;  not  till  a  later  period,  and  a 
greater  multiplication  of  human  beings,  could  caste  and  ser- 
vice have  ripened  into  slavery,  even  in  Egypt. 

At  the  age  of  seventy-five,  A.  M.  2083,  B.  C.  1921,  after  the 
death  of  Noah,  Abraham  departs  out  of  Haran,  and  begins 
his  patriarchal  wanderings,  journeying  towards  the  south. 
Three  hundred  years  after  the  division  of  tongues  we  find 
him,  by  stress  of  famine,  with  his  household,  sojourning  in 
Egypt,  on  terms  of  friendship  with  Pharaoh,  with  much  riches 
of  sheep  and  oxen,  and  he-asses,  and  men-servants  and  maid- 
servants, and  she-asses  and  camels.  On  his  departure  out  of 
Egypt,  he  is  described  as  very  rich  in  cattle,  in  silver  and  gold, 
and  Lot  also  is  described  as  possessing  flocks  and  herds  and 
tents ;  and  the  only  description  of  servants  specified  are  herds- 
men. They  are  not  catalogued  as  property,  but  they  have  the 
charge  of  Abraham's  and  Lot's  property,  and  they  quarrel,  as 
opposing  clans,  among  themselves.  There  is  not  a  trace  among 
the  servants  of  the  household  of  any  thing  but  voluntary,  free 
service.  There  was  no  mode  of  compulsion  by  which  either 
Abraham  or  Lot  could  have  procured  or  maintained  any  other 
service.  The  supposition  of  any  other  is  wholly  groundless 
and  gratuitous.  It  is  one  of  the  most  insolent  assumptions 
that  can  be  conceived,  without  the  remotest  ground  of  ar- 
gument or  probability,  without  the  slightest  fact  or  hint  of 
sacred  or  profane  history  to  build  upon,  when  the  apologist  or 
defender  takes  up  the  idea  of  the  code  and  principles  of  mod- 
ern American  slavery,  and  carries  it  back  to  the  household  of 
Abraham,  and  from  that  assumption  argues  as  if  it  were  a  re- 


THE    HOUSEHOLD    OF    ABRAHAM.  41 

ality.    There  is  not  only  nothing  to  justify,  but  every  thing  to 
contradict  and  forbid  this  conclusion. 

Let  us  consider  it  closely.  The  households  of  Abraham  are 
brought  before  us  and  described,  in  the  way  of  a  brief  classi- 
fication, in  several  passages,  as  in  Gen.  xiv.  14;  xvii.  12,  13, 
23,  27.  The  first  classification  is  of  those  fit  for  war,  and 
drawn  out  for  that  purpose ;  the  second  is  with  reference  to  cir- 
cumcision, and  the  classes  to  be  submitted  to  that  rite ;  both 
classifications  are  of  males  only,  but  they  include  all  the  males  of 
every  description.  In  the  first  classification,  only  those  born 
in  his  own  house  are  included,  to  the  number  of  three  hundred 
and  eighteen.  The  Hebrew  phrase  (Gen.  xiv.  14)  is  TPS  •'-•^ 
yelidhi  betho,  the  born  of  the  house,  the  born  of  his  house,  or 
his  household ;  a  phrase  distinguishing  the  natives  of  Abra- 
ham's community,  those  born  within  the  families  under  his 
jurisdiction,  of  his  tribe,  in  his  service,  and  under  his  protec- 
tion, as  their  head ;  a  phrase  distinguishing  them  from  those 
who  were  born  abroad,  and  had  entered  into  his  service,  from 
the  families  of  "  strangers,"  from  tribes  or  races  other  than 
his.  These  are  not  called  servants,  but  instructed  ones,  or 
persons  trained  and  experienced,  persons  of  proved  fidelity 
and  skill,  who  could  be  relied  upon.  He  armed,  or  led  forth 
in  battle  array,  these  trained,  tried,  disciplined  ones,  the  ex- 
perts, of  tried  character,  born  and  educated  in  his  own  patri- 
archal settlement  or  household.  They  were  certainly  not  born 
in  his  own  tent,  nor  beneath  his  own  roof,  but  were  simply  the 
children  of  families  dwelling  in  tents  or  tabernacles,  owning  a 
patriarchal  allegiance  to  him,  not  owned  by  him,  not  his  prop- 
erty, but  connected  with  him  in  the  voluntary,  definite  obliga- 
tions which  bound  the  community  of  families  together.  Among 
these  families  were  found  three  hundred  and  eighteen  males 
capable  of  bearing  arms,  and  so  trained  as  to  be  able  to  act 
efficiently  as  soldiers.  He  set  them  in  battle  array  as  such, 
and  not  either  as  servants  or  slaves.  They  are  not  only  not 
called  servants  here,  but  in  the  twenty-fourth  verse,  instead 


42  HISTOBIC    INVESTIGATION. 

of  being  mentioned  as  servants,  they  are  called  "  the  young 
men,"  Q"1"}**",  hanaarim,  certainly,  beyond  all  question,  free- 
men. The  Hebrew  phrase  describing  them  as  drawn  out, 
is  vs^h  p"}"3,  vayarek  henikav,  eduxit  milites  ad  bellum 
(Gesenius),  «pJfi,  initiates,  hinc  peritus,  probatce  fidei,  in- 
itiated^ skilled,  of  proved  faithfulness.  He  drew  out  his 
trained  ones  to  war. 

So  much  for  the  first  classification,  founded  on  the  circum- 
stance of  having  been  born  in  the  families  of  Abraham's  patri- 
archal household,  and  the  quality  of  being  able  and  instructed 
to  bear  arms,  to  serve  as  soldiers.  If  we  add  to  the  males  an 
equal  number  of  females,  we  have  six  hundred  and  thirty-six, 
say  from  the  age  of  twenty  to  thirty  or  upwards.  Add  an 
equal  number  from  infancy  up  to  twenty,  and  we  should  have 
twelve  hundred  and  seventy-two,  born  of  the  house.  Now  as 
to  the  second  classification  in  reference  to  circumcision,  the 
division  of  males  is  as  follows.  In  the  12th  verse  of  the  17th 
chapter,  the  whole  household  of  Abraham  is  divided  into 
"those  born  in  the  house,  or  bought  with  money  of  any 
stranger,  which  is  not  of  thy  seed,  every  man-child  in  your 
generations."  In  the  13th  verse,  "He  that  is  born  in  thy 
house,  and  he  that  is  bought  with  thy  money."  In  the  23d 
verse,  "All  that  were  born  in  his  house,  and  all  that  were 
bought  with  his  money,  every  male  among  the  men  of  Abra- 
ham's house."  In  the  27th  verse,  "All  the  men  of  his  house, 
born  in  the  house,  and  bought  with  money  of  the  stranger." 
All  but  Abraham  and  Ishmael  are  comprehended  in  these  two 
classes. 

In  these  passages,  the  division  of  the  whole  household  com- 
munity is  into  those  born  in  the  house,  members  by  birth  of 
Abraham's  tribe-families,  and  those  bought  with  his  money 
of  the  stranger,  and  not  of  his  seed.  There  were  three  hun- 
dred and  eighteen  of  the  first  class,  old  enough  and  instructed 
enough  to  serve  as  soldiers  in  a  military  expedition  ;  on  the 
lowest  average  computation  there  would  be  at  least  as  many 


THE    HOUSEHOLD    OP    ABRAHAM.  43 

more,  too  young  and  inexperienced  for  such  service,  making 
together  six  hundred  and  thirty-six.  It  is  assumed  by  thoso 
who  assert  that  Abraham  was  a  slaveholder,  that  these  were 
all  slaves,  for  it  is  assumed  that  the  phrase  born  in  the  house 
means  slaves,  and  if  this  were  the  case,  then  Abraham  had,  at 
this  time,  six  hundred  and  thirty-six  slave  born,  and  if  you 
add  as  many  more  females,  of  all  ages  twelve  hundred  and 
seventy-two. 

Now  if  those  born  in  the  house  were  slaves,  what  were 
those  bought  with  money  ?  They  constituted  all  the  remain- 
ing portion  of  Abraham's  household,  and  if  they  also  were 
slaves,  then  it  follows  that  every  male  in  Abraham's  whole 
patriarchal  jurisdiction  and  community  was  a  slave,  and  he 
and  Ishmael  his  son  were  the  only  free  persons  among  them. 
Supposing  those  bought  with  his  money  to  be  one  half  as  many 
as  the  others,  here  would  be  a  community  of  some  nine  hun- 
dred males  in  the  state  of  slavery  and  only  two  free  persons 
among  them,  the  owner  and  his  son !  If  you  add  as  many 
more  females,  then  a  community  of  eighteen  hundred  slaves 
in  the  same  case.  And  this  would  constitute  the  whole  of  an 
independent  tribe,  a  nomadic,  roving  community,  eighteen 
hundred  slaves  and  the  owner  and  his  son ;  no  laws  to  bind 
them  to  him  in  subjection,  no  military  or  civil  power  or  pro- 
cess by  which  such  subjection  could  be  maintained,  or  the  slav- 
ery enforced;  and  the  owner  dependent  on  one  half  or  one 
third  of  these  chattels  acting  as  a  band  of  soldiers  to  keep  the 
other  half  from  being  carried  away  captive  by  surrounding 
royal  marauders ! 

If  only  those  born  in  the  house  were  Abraham's  slaves,  and 
if  those  obtained  from  strangers,  those  bought  with  his  money, 
and  not  of  his  seed,  were  not  slaves,  then  the  absoluteness 
and  sacredness  of  the  chattelism  were  just  in  proportion  to 
the  nearness  of  relationship  on  the  part  of  the  chattels  to  their 
owner.  Those  that  were  born  in  Abraham's  house,  and  were 
of  his  own  race  in  nearer  or  more  distant  degrees  of  affinity, 


44  HISTORIC   INVESTIGATION. 

just  in  proportion  to  their  home  relationship,  were  in  a  worse 
condition  than  the  strangers,  more  absolutely  and  entirely  en- 
slaved ! 

But  in  opposition  to  such  extreme  absurdities,  we  find  by 
examination  of  the  phrases  born  in  the  house  and  bought  with 
money,  that  neither  of  them  intimates  a  state  of  slavery,  nor 
can,  without  violence,  be  so  interpreted.  This  will  be  demon- 
strated in  pursuing  the  philological  argument ;  at  present  the 
comparison  of  a  few  passages  will  be  sufficient,  as  of  Exodus, 
xii.  43-49  ;  Leviticus,  xxii.  10,  11 ;  Leviticus,  xviii.  9  ;  Exodus, 
xxi.  2 ;  Jeremiah,  ii.  14 ;  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  7.  In  these  passages 
the  usage  of  the  phrases  "  born  in  the  house,"  "  home-born," 
"  sons  of  the  house,"  is  demonstrated  as  a  common  usage  in 
reference  to  free  persons  ;  indeed,  not  a  solitary  instance  can 
be  found  of  their  application  to  slaves.  In  Genesis  xv.  3, 
Abraham  says,  "  One  born  in  my  house,  wa— as  ben  betlii,  is 
mine  heir;"  certainly  not  a  slave.  Bishop Blayney translates 
Jeremiah  ii.  14:  ms  T>^,  yelidh  beth,  child  of  the  household, 
and  affirms  that  it  answers  to  the  Latin  words  films  familias, 
and  stands  opposed  to  a  slave.*  But  this  is  precisely  the 
same  word  as  in  Genesis  xiv.  14,  "  born  in  his  own  house."  So 
in  Leviticus  xxii.  11,  of  a  person  born  in  the  priest's  house, 
the  same  phrase.  In  Exodus  xii.  48,  49,  the  home-born  is  re- 
ferred to  as  S"«rj  h~t?>  etzrah  haarets,  the  born  of  the  land, 
free-born. 

In  Leviticus  xviii.  9,  we  have  an  example  of  corresponding 
usage  in  connection  with  ma  beth,  as  of  free  persons,  "The 
daughter  of  thy  father  or  daughter  of  thy  mother,  born  at 
home,  ITS  fnV'tt>  moledheth  beth,  the  born  of  the  house  ;  and 
there  is  no  more  proof  that  the  phrase  in  Genesis  xiv.  14, 
means  a  slave,  or  means  any  other  than  a  freeman,  than  there 
is  that  the  daughter  is  a  slave,  because  called  the  born  of  the 
house. 

It  is  impossible  to  interpret  Genesis  xv.  3,  one  born  in  my 
*  Blayney's  Jeremiah — note  on  verse  14,  chapter  ii. 


THE   HOUSEHOLD  OF   ABRAHAM.  45 

house,  is  mine  heir,  of  a  slave.  But  the  three  hundred  and 
eighteen  hi  Genesis  xiv.  14,  born  in  his  own  house,  were  all  of 
the  same  class,  and  the  phrases  are  synonymous.  The  chil- 
dren of  the  Hebrew  servants  were  as  free-born  as  the  children 
of  their  masters ;  there  was  no  such  thing  as  chattelism  in  ex- 
istence among  them,  nor  any  such  infamous  law  or  custom  as 
that  which  brands  the  child  as  the  property  of  the  master, 
because  the  parent  was  claimed  as  such,  or  had  been  employed 
in  his  service  at  the  time  of  the  babe's  birth.  Yet  nothing 
less  than  this  infamy  of  infamies  is  attributed  to  Abraham  and 
his  household,  by  those  who  assert  that  the  phrase  born  in  his 
own  house  is  to  be  interpreted  of  slaves. 

But,  second,  the  phrase  bought  with  money,  t)bb-nij?to,  miq- 
nath  keseph,  Genesis  xvii.  12,  is  equally  demonstrated  as  a 
usage  applying  to  freemen,  and  not  to  slaves.  This  is  proved 
by  Leviticus  xxv.  51,  spoken  in  regard  to  a  Hebrew,  who 
could  by  no  possibility  be  a  slave,  S)ostt  toifsto  miqnatho  mik- 
keseph,  the  money  that  he  was  bought  for,  the  money  of  his 
purchase,  the  phrase  always  used  of  obtaining  a  Hebrew  ser- 
vant. So  in  Exodus  xxi.  2  :  "  If  thou  buy  a  Hebrew  servant," 
the  same  verb  of  obtaining,  as  used  likewise  in  Rnth  iv.  10  ; 
"  Moreover,  Ruth,  the  Moabitess,  the  wife  of  Mahlon,  have  I 
purchased  to  be  my  wife,"  ^sp*.  kanithi,  bought,  that  is  ob- 
tained with  a  dowry,  for  Ruth  was  not  a  slave.  So  likewise 
Genesis  .iv.  1 ;  used  in  regard  to  the  first-born  of  Eve,  who 
was  not  a  slave ;  Eve  said,  I  have  bought  a  man  from  the  Lord, 
•'tv'Sjj  kanithi,  gotten,  obtained.  So  likewise  Hosea  iii.  2 ;  the 
prophet's  purchase  of  his  wife,  /  bought  her  to  me,  the  word 
from  rp.3  being  the  word  employed,  which  is  placed  by  Ge- 
senius  as  synonymous  with  n;pr  kanah,  to  obtain. 

Now  clearly  if  from  the  phrase,  bought  with  his  money,  it 
would  be  proper  to  assume  that  those  servants,  whose  service 
was  thus  obtained,  were  Abraham's  slave  property,  and  con- 
sequently to  assume  that  it  is  right  for  us  to  buy  human  beings 
and  hold  them  as  slaves,  because  by  this  assumption  Abra- 


46  HISTORIC   INVESTIGATION. 

ham  did  the  same,  then  from  the  same  phrase  we  can  demon- 
strate, first,  that  the  Hebrew  servant  was  a  slave,  to  be  bought 
and  sold  as  property,  and  consequently,  secondly,  that  all  our 
servants  are  slaves ;  thirdly,  that  Ruth,  the  wife  of  Boaz,  was 
the  slave  property  of  Boaz,  his  chattel ;  and  fourthly,  that  the 
wife  of  the  prophet  Hosea  was  his  slave,  his  property;  and  con- 
sequently, fifthly,  to  conclude  that  it  would  be  right  for  pious 
men  now  to  hold  their  wives  as  slaves,  and  dispose  of  them  as 
property.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  incontrovertible  that  the  use 
of  this  idiom  furnishes  no  more  indication  of  slavery  in  Abra- 
ham's household,  than  it  did  in  Adam  and  Eve's;  no  more 
than  the  use  of  the  phrase  in  our  language  at  the  present  day, 
I  have  got  me,  at  a  very  fair  price,  a  good  coachman,  or,  I  have 
got  me,  for  a  reasonable  sum,  ten  good  clerks  for  our  new 
warehouse,  or,  I  have  procured,  at  a  good  bargain,  twenty 
hands  for  the  farm  during  the  summer,  or  fifteen  carpenters 
for  the  buildings,  would  prove  that  the  coachman  and  the 
clerks,  the  farmers  and  the  carpenters,  were  all  chattels,  slaves, 
property,  bought,  sold,  transferred,  as  you  might  transfer  a 
horse  and  carriage,  a  wheelbarrow,  plow,  carpenter's  bench, 
or  clerk's  writing  desk. 

So  likewise  the  phrase,  born  in  his  house,  has  no  connection 
with  slavery,  and  can  not  be  shown  to  have  the  least  mean- 
ing or  intimation  that  way.  But  in  order  to  gain  the  first  be- 
ginning of  a  sanction  for  American  slavery  from  Abraham's 
household,  its  defenders  have  got  to  prove  that  God  ordained 
for  him  a  law  that  every  child  born  of  any  of  his  servants  was, 
therefore,  by  law  of  such  birth,  a  chattel,  a  slave,  a  piece  of 
Abraham's  property,  and  that  that  quality  of  property,  supreme 
above  every  other,  inhered  in  that  race,  generation  after  gen- 
eration. Men  assume  this  in  order  to  sustain  this  iniquity  among 
themselves ;  they  can  not  appeal  to  Abraham  without  such  an 
assumption.  And  let  every  thinking  man  consider  the  hideous 
and  horrible  perversion  of  thus  carrying  back  the  most  atro- 
cious feature  of  the  slavery  of  our  time,  and  setting  that  up, 


THE    HOUSEHOLD    OF    ABRAHAM.  47 

that  enormity  of  the  theft  of  children  from  their  parents,  as 
the  meaning  of  the  phrase,  born  in  his  own  house,  a  meaning 
which  that  phrase  never  bears  anywhere,  nor  ever  did  bear ; 
as  if  Abraham  laid  his  grasp  on  every  new-born  child  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  his  patriarchal  authority,  and  said,  This  is 
my  property,  my  slave,  by  virtue  of  the  father  and  the  mother, 
or  the  mother  alone,  having  been  in  my  service,  under  my  pa- 
triarchal supervision,  when  the  babe  came  into  the  world !  This 
is  monstrous,  and  would  scandalize  the  pages  of  a  divine  inspi- 
ration, if  foisted  among  them.  And  slavery  is  altogether  a 
thing  so  positive  and  dreadful,  that  mere  suppositions  or  hints 
are  not  to  be  endured  in  the  place  of  proof  in  regard  to  it ; 
but  you  rightfully  demand  the  most  positive  and  palpable 
demonstration  of  its  existence,  especially  if  men  are  going  to 
claim  for  themselves,  by  virtue  of  its  alleged  practice  in  Abra- 
ham's family,  the  right,  four  thousand  years  afterwards,  of 
property  in  human  beings,  the  right  of  enslaving  another  race 
for  ever.'  If  men  dare  attempt  to  bring  Scripture  to  sanction 
such  iniquity,  they  must  be  held  to  the  most  irresistible  and 
undeniable  demonstration.* 

*  BUTLER'S  AKALOQY,  Christianity  revere  as  the  voice  of  God  1     Slavery, 

as  a  republication  of  natural  religion,  otherwise  only  a  human  establishment, 

The  carelessness  of  men,  though  them-  becomes  thus  a  divine  institution!" 

selves  opposed  to  slavery,  and  regard-  And  yet,  the  whole  drift  of  this  writer's 

ing  it  as  criminal  and  pernicious  in  work,  which  is  voluminous,  and  very 

the  extreme,  yet  admitting,  or  taking  learned,   is  against    slavery,   and    a 

for  granted,  its  existence  by  authority  demonstration  of  the  duty  of  every 

of  Divine  Revelation,  is  inexplicable,  people  to  abolish  it.     How  dreadful 

Yet  even  WALLON,  a  recent  French  the  supposition,  could  it  be  made  to 

historian  of  slavery,  suggests,  without  a  prevail,  that  the  voice  of  God  is  thus 

single  proof,  that  Abraham's  slaves  (/  /)  in  antagonism  with  the  dictates  of 

composed,  with  his  flocks,  the  heritage  natural  justice  and  humanity  I     Com- 

which  he  transmitted  to  his  son  Isaac,  pare  JAY'S  WORKS,  Letter  to  Bishop 

and  that  Moses  did  not  merely  refer  to  Ives,   and   Reproof  of  Am,   Church, 

such  slavery,  but  maintained  and  es-  Compare,    also,    GISBORNE    on    tho 

tablisheditbylawl    "  What  authority  Morals    of    Slavery,    144,    155,    and 

is  thus  given  to  usage,"  exclaims  this  GRANVILLE  SHARPE'S  Declaration  oi 

writer,  "  by  a  Word,  which  Christians  Natural  Right,  29. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

GOD'S  CHOICE  OF  ABKAIIAM,  AND  FOE  "WHAT. — IF  ABRAHAM  HAD  SLATES,  WHAT 
BECAME  OF  THEM? 

Now  it  is  to  be  marked,  in  this  argument,  that  when  God 
revealed  himself  to  Abraham,  and  began  in  his  person  the 
foundation  of  a  new  religious  dispensation  and  race,  he  plucked 
him  away  from  the  manners  and  the  morals  of  the  world  as  it 
was,  and  consecrated  him  as  the  person  in  whom  all  the  fami- 
lies of  the  earth  should  be  blessed,  a  progenitor  of  nations, 
and  the  framer  of  such  a  discipline  and  policy  for  his  children 
and  his  household  after  him,  that  they  should  keep  the  way 
of  the  Lord,  to  do  justice  and  judgment.  A  system  of  justice 
was  to  be  established  in  opposition  to  the  prevalence  of  injus- 
tice and  selfish  power,  and  a  system  of  righteous  judgment 
instead  of  despotic  violence  and  wrong,  and  of  this  Abraham 
was  chosen  to  be  an  example  and  head. 

Justice  and  judgment !  These  are  the  attributes  of  God, 
infallible,  immutable,  in  principle  and  in  action.  A  God  of 
truth  and  without  iniquity,  just  and  right  is  he.  As  he  is  just 
in  himself,  just  in  all  his  attributes,  just  in  all  his  ways,  so  he 
will  not,  can  not  sanction  injustice  or  unjust  judgment  in 
others ;  he  can  not  and  will  not  set  at  the  foundation  of  so- 
ciety any  example  of  injustice,  any  fountain  or  precedent  of 
unrighteousness  for  after  generations  and  ages. 

It  is  monstrous  impiety  to  attempt  to  foist  auch  deformities 
into  a  divine  revelation.  When  we  remember  with  what  fiery 
indignation  and  wrath  God  has  proclaimed  vengeance  against 
all  manner  of  oppression  and  injustice:  "Wo  unto  him  that 


THE   HOUSEHOLD   POLICY.  49 

buildeth  his  house  by  unrighteousness,  and  his  chambers  by 
wrong ;  wo  unto  him  that  taketh  his  neighbor's  work  without 
wages,  and  giveth  him  not  for  his  hire  ;"  when  we  remember 
how  every  page  of  this  holy  book  shines  with  the  glory  of 
God's  righteousness,  and  that  of  old  it  passed  into  a  proverb, 
that  justice  and  judgment  are  better  than  all  sacrifices,  it  is 
impossible  to  admit  that  in  the  first  household  life  and  consti- 
tution, through  which  God  declared  he  would  make  all  nations 
blessed,  he  should  have  set  a  fountain  of  sin  and  misery,  the 
streams  of  which  make  every  nation  that  drinks  thereof  ac- 
cursed. 

It  is  equally  a  monstrous  supposition,  inadmissible  at  the 
outset,  that  a  man  should  be  chosen  of  Jehovah,  to  receive 
and  promulgate,  or  to  plant  and  exemplify,  the  great  com- 
manding principles  of  right  and  wrong  in  human  society,  the 
manner  of  feeling  and  of  conduct,  of  personal  and  social  in- 
tercourse, pleasing  to  the  Deity,  and  then  that  this  chosen 
ambassador  or  missionary  of  religious  ethics  should  have  been 
left  to  take  his  pattern  of  life  and  manners  from  the  heathen 
world — from  tribes  and  nations  destitute  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion, having  corrupted,  and  at  length  extinguished  that  which 
the  race  originally  received.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose,  that 
in  such  an  essential  part,  both  of  natural  and  revealed  moral- 
ity, as  the  rights  of  men  to  personal  liberty,  and  the  respect 
due  to  those  rights,  Abraham  should  have  been  instructed  or 
permitted  of  God  to  take  just  what  he  found  in  the  brutal  and 
idolatrous,  or  half-civilized  and  barbarous  tribes  around  him, 
and  to  set  that  as  the  example  in  his  own  household,  and  trans- 
mit it  as  the  will  of  God  to  posterity.  If  the  system  of  human 
slavery  had  been  established  and  transmitted,  it  would  inevita- 
bly have  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  its  reality ;  the  results  of 
its  establishment  would  have  proved  it  beyond  a  question.  The 
passage  of  the  lava  from  a  volcano  would  not  be  more  surely 
traced  by  its  effects,  the  position  of  an  extinct  volcano  could 
not  be  more  surely  known  in  after  ages  by  the  discovery  of 

5 


50  GOD'S  CHOICE  OF  ABRAHAM. 

its  crater,  than  the  existence  of  slavery  by  its  fruits  in  the 
laws,  policy,  and  history  of  the  people. 

If  in  any  thing  we  are  in  doubt  as  to  the  details  of  the  so- 
cial system  appointed  of  God,  in  Abraham's  exemplification 
or  foundation  of  it,  we  rightly  look  for  information  to  the 
manner  in  which  we  find  it  developed  in  his  posterity.  From 
that  development  we  can  argue  back  to  what  must  have 
been  commenced  as  the  source  of  it  in  Abraham's  own  life. 
In  default  of  any  specific,  unquestionable  knowledge  as  to 
Abraham's  domestic  laws  and  habits,  we  have  to  look  at 
the  after  result  of  the  system  which  he  set  a  going;  the 
earliest  point  where  the  arrangements  plainly  crop  out,  as  it 
were,  shows  us  what  his  own  practice  must  have  been.  If  a 
fountain  is  so  deep  down  in  the  rifts  under  a  mountain  that  we 
can  not  get  at  its  depths,  to  analyze  it  there,  we  must  be  satis- 
fied with  the  nearest  accessible  point,  where  the  stream  comes 
rippling  through  the  green  meadow,  or  brawling  over  the  cliff. 
God  chose  Abraham  for  the  purposes  of  his  righteousness,  and 
grafted  upon  him  the  graft  of  a  new  society.  He  did  not  choose 
Abraham  to  sanction  and  perpetuate  in  him  the  manners  and 
morals  of  a  violent  and  unregenerate  age,  but  to  set  in  him 
the  example  and  the  spring  of  a  Christian  society,  a  benevo- 
lent community,  a  society  under  the  divine  law.  Now  what- 
ever that  law  and  those  principles  are  found  to  be,  when  they 
come  to  be  clearly  and  unmistakably  revealed  and  developed 
in  an  after  age,  they  must  have  been  in  Abraham's  planting 
and  commencement  of  them.  As  the  stream  is  known  by  its 
fountain,  so  the  fountain  is  known  by  its  stream. 

If  you  wished  to  ascertain  the  original  fruit  of  the  parent 
tree  in  an  orchard  a  hundred  years  old,  which  you  knew  by 
the  records  of  the  farm  that  your  grandfather  planted  and 
grafted  with  his  own  hands,  the  kind  of  fruit,  we  mean,  which 
the  tree  yielded  the  first  time  after  grafting,  would  you  not 
appeal  to  the  whole  orchard,  and  to  the  kind  of  apples  it  has 
borne  in  your  time  ?  But  suppose  that  some  one  should  set 


PBLNTCIPLES   OF   THE   HOUSEHOLD.  51 

before  you  the  bitter,  unwholesome  fruit  of  a  wild  crab-apple 
tree,  the  product  of  the  wilderness,  affirming  that  to  have 
been  the  fruit  which  your  grandfather  chose  for  his  orchard, 
and  intended  to  perpetuate,  arguing  that  it  must  have  been 
so,  because  that  bitter-crab  tree  had  grown  wild  in  the  forest 
for  hundreds  of  years,  and  the  fact  of  its  being  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  grounds  of  your  grandfather  when  he  grafted 
his  orchard,  proves  that  the  orchard  must  have  been  grafted 
with  slips  of  that  wild  crab  tree.  Thou  fool,*you  would  say, 
the  orchard  does  not  bear  crab-apples,  and  never  did,  on  the 
contrary,  it  has  always  been  a  law  of  the  farm  that  if  any 
were  found  they  should  be  cut  down,  and  we  know  that  the 
fruit  the  trees  bear  now  is  the  very  same  that  our  grand- 
father grafted,  and  used  in  his  own  family.  Does  not  the  fruit 
of  a  grafted  tree  always  prove  the  nature  of  the  graft  ?  If  I 
have  half  a  dozen  pear  trees  in  my  garden,  that  bear  the  most 
delicious  St.  Michael's,  and  I  know  that  those  pear  trees  were 
grafted  by  my  father,  do  I  not  know  that  he  grafted  the  very 
fruit  which  every  autumn  I  use  at  my  table,  and  not  the  choke 
pear,  which  even  my  hogs  scarcely  put  up  with  ?  Will  you 
tell  me  that  the  choke  pear  was  the  one  which  my  father  was 
fond  of,  and  which  he  carefully  cultivated,  and  intended  for 
my  table  ?  How  then  does  it  happen  that  the  trees  which  he 
grafted  bear  the  St.  Michael's  ? 

When  God  converts  a  man,  does  he  convert  him  to  perpet- 
uate by  him  the  works  of  the  devil,  or  to  destroy  the  works 
of  the  devil,  and  introduce'the  fruits  of  grace?  When  a  man 
is  cut  out  of  the  wild  olive,  and  grafted  into  the  true  olive,  is  it 
for  the  purpose  of  fruit  or  is  it  to  perpetuate  poison  ?  When 
God  brings  a  drunkard  to  repentance,  does  he  do  it  in  order 
to  set  up  a  new  rum  shop  on  the  man's  premises,  under  his 
care,  and  so  to  sanctify  the  sale  of  rum  by  his  example  ?  When 
God  converts  a  Pagan,  does  he  do  it  in  order  to  bring  in 
Pagan  rites  into  his  church,  and  to  sanctify  the  worship  of 
Pagan  images  ?  When  God  chose  Abraham,  did  he  do  it  in 


52          GOD'S  CHOICE  OF  ABRAHAM. 

order  to  set  the  seal  of  his  approbation  upon  one  of  the  great- 
est enormities  of  the  idolatrous  world,  slavery  and  the  slave- 
trade,  in  order  to  bring  in  that  iniquity,  and  establish  it  in 
the  household  policy  of  his  own  people  ?  This  is  the  argu- 
ment of  those  who  assume  that  Abraham  held  slaves  and  then 
appeal  to  his  example  as  being  God's  sanction  of  the  crime  of 
American  slavery.  That  which,  if  Abraham  had  let  it  alone, 
would  have  been  branded  as  a  crime,  would  have  stood  in  the 
annals  of  Sodomic  and  Egyptian  history  as  a  crime,  by  being 
taken  up  into  Abraham's  life,  as  a  domestic  example,  is  bap- 
tized for  a  virtue.  This  is  a  horrible  perversion,  and  blasphemy 
against  the  justice  and  holiness  of  God. 

But  we  say,  let  the  records  of  that  household  policy  answer. 
They  are  before  us,  they  are  plain,  from  the  time  of  Abraham 
downwards.  If  Abraham  had  had  slaves,  had  bought  and  sold 
men  as  property,  had  grown  rich  in  that  way,  his  slave  prop- 
erty would  have  been  more  valuable  than  all  his  other  riches, 
and  Isaac  and  Jacob  would  have  inherited  his  possessions  and 
his  claims,  and  by  the  very  law  of  propagation  and  of  entail 
in  slave  property  would  have  vastly  accumulated  it.  Isaac 
would  have  had  the  whole  three  hundred  and  eighteen  home- 
born,  or  six  hundred  and  thirty-six  of  both  sexes,  and  twelve 
hundred  and  seventy-two  of  all  ages,  or  more  than  eighteen 
hundred  of  all  classes,  on  his  father's  plantation,  besides  all 
the  increase  of  hands  for  more  than  fifty  years,  for  Abraham, 
when  he  died,  gave  all  that  he  had  unto  Isaac,  and  fifty  years 
would  have  increased  the  number,  at  the  lowest  computation, 
to  some  ten  or  twelve  thousand.  And  the  same  inheritance 
descending  inevitably  from  Isaac,  and  accumulating  through 
the  lifetime  of  Jacob  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  even  if 
divided  between  Esau  and  Jacob,  must  have  constituted  a 
great  multitude.  It  is  impossible  that  all  this  slave  property, 
as  a  sanctified  domestic  institution,  could  have  vanished  into 
thin  air;  or  if  a  missionary  institution,  Jacob  would  not  have 
been  allowed  to  put  it  up  at  auction,  or  dispose  of  it  at  a  price, 


THE   HOUSEHOLD   POLICY.  63 

on  account  of  the  famine  in  Canaan.  When  Jacob  went  down 
into  Egypt,  we  should  certainly  have  found  slaves  in  his  house- 
hold, for  he  took  his  journey  with  all  that  he  had,  and  there 
is  great  particularity  in  the  enumeration  both  of  souls  and  sub- 
stance, but  not  the  faintest  shadow  of  the  presence  of  slavery 
do  we  find  there,  not  the  most  distant  intimation  of  slaves  or 
slave  property  being  a  patriarchal  fixture.  What  has  become 
of  the  three  hundred  and  eighteen,  or  the  six  hundred  and 
thirty-six,  or  the  twelve  hundred  and  seventy-two,  or  the  eigh- 
teen hundred,  and  their  increase  of  many  thousands,  left  to  his 
children  by  their  great  slaveholding  grandfather?  Slavery  never 
dies  out,  but  by  the  law  of  human  cupidity  holds  on  and  makes 
itself  more  and  more  manifest.  Abraham  never  sold  slaves ; 
nobody  accuses  him  of  that ;  and  even  those  who  assume  that 
he  was  a  slaveholder,  can  find  no  trace  of  any  such  transaction. 
What,  then,  became  of  his  three  hundred  and  eighteen,  or  six 
hundred  and  thirty-six,  or  twelve  hundred  and  seventy-two,  or 
eighteen  hundred  ?  They  did  not  descend  to  Isaac,  they  were 
not  inherited  by  him  as  a  property,  for  then  also  we  should 
have  found  them  in  the  family  of  Jacob,  since  Isaac  never  sold 
slaves.  But  all  traces  of  them  disappear,  and  neither  in  Jacob's 
family  nor  Esau's  can  we  discover  the  least  indication  of  slav- 
ery or  slave  property. 

On  the  contrary,  the  only  instance  of  the  selling  and  buying 
of  a  human  being  in  a  record  of  more  than  four  hundred  years 
is  that  of  Joseph,  distinctly  branded  by  him,  in  describing  the 
transaction,  as  man-stealing.  And  until  that  transaction,  there 
is  no  positive  proof  of  slavery  existing  anywhere ;  so  that,  to 
resume  our  illustration  of  the  orchard  and  the  grafted  fruit,  this 
wild  tree,  which  the  advocates  of  slavery  assume  to  have  been 
adopted  by  Abraham,  as  a  universal  growth  of  society,  is  not 
certainly  discovered  in  all  that  region  till  at  least  three  hun- 
dred years  after  the  calling  of  Abraham,  and  then  comes  up  as 
a  crime.  If,  instead  of  being  crime,  slavery  had  been  a  do- 
mestic institution,  appointed  of  God  and  sanctioned  as  a  patri- 


54  GOD'S   CHOICE   OF   ABRAHAM:. 

archal  right,  we  should  certainly  have-  found  some  trace  of 
human  beings  held  as  property  when  the  Israelites  went  up 
out  of  Egypt. 

Instead  of  that,  we  find  such  property  forbidden,  and  the 
origin  of  it,  and  the  traffic  in  it,  denounced  as  an  iniquity  to 
be  punished  with  death.  We  find  a  net-work  of  admirable 
legislation,  woven  with  direct  reference  to  the  exclusion  of  this 
iniquity,  so  as  to  render  slavery  for  ever  impossible  in  the  land. 
And  these  laws  are  beyond  question  an  embodiment  of  the 
great  principles  of  common  law  and  custom  that  had  prevailed 
since  Abraham  set  them.  They  are  the  grand  precedents  of 
judgment  and  of  justice  which  God  declared  that  Abraham 
was  appointed  to  transmit  to  his  posterity,  reduced  to  specific 
written  forms ;  the  principles  that  had  been  transmitted  from 
the  patriarchal  life  of  Abraham,  for  otherwise  the  Israelites 
could  not  possibly  have  been  prepared  for  such  legislation,  nor 
brought  submissively  under  it. 

The  legislation  appointed  of  God  was  not  that  of  a  break- 
up in  their  habits,  not  a  revolutionary  legislation,  but  a  legis- 
lation in  concord  with  the  system  of  morals  and  manners  set 
in  power  by  Abraham,  and  consolidated  for  five  hundred 
years.  The  great  idea  of  the  sacredness  of  personal  freedom 
was  not  a  new  unknown  idea ;  if  it  had  been,  no  code  of  laws 
could  have  communicated  it,  so  as  to  make  it  instantly  per- 
vade the  nation  as  a  life.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  des- 
potic and  dreadful  idea  of  the  righteousness  and  sacredness 
of  slave  property,  the  justice  and  benevolence  of  buying  and 
selling  men  as  chattels,  -if  that  had  been  a  custom  and  an  heir- 
loom from  Abi'aham  downwards,  could  not  have  been  opposed 
without  disturbance,  could  not  have  quietly  yielded  and  van- 
ished and  given  place  to  the  unexampled  system  of  freedom  and 
kindness  revealed  through  Moses.  If  the  people  had  been  slave- 
holders, with  the  example  of  Abraham  to  sanction  them,  and 
Moses  had  undertaken  to  put  a  stop  to  that  system,  and  to 
strike  the  fetters  from  their  slaves,  he  would  have  found  a 


EQUALITY   AND   FREEDOM.  55 

harder  task,  in  some  respects,  than  that  of  bringing  the  whole 
nation  out  from  Egypt.  But  there  was  no  such  thing  as  slavery 
among  them,  and  never  had  been. 

A  system  of  free  service  there  was,  and  of  customary 
wages,  and  it  had  come  down  from  the  habits  of  patriarchal 
life,  and  the  necessities  of  a  pastoral,  nomadic  community. 
The  contract  of  Jacob  with  Laban  shows  plainly  the  kind  of 
contract  that  had  been  customary,  the  modes  and  usages  of 
service.  Seven  years'  service  were  not  pitched  upon  by  Jacob 
at  a  venture,  but  doubtless  because  the  period  of  seven  years 
was  the  accustomed  period  of  apprenticeship  for  a  servant ; 
and  there  are  plain  reasons  in  the  nature  of  pastoral  life  why 
the  contract  with  servants  should  extend  over  so  long  a  period, 
or  longer,  if  the  servant  and  the  master  were  so  agreed.  But 
longer  or  shorter,  the  service  was  by  agreement,  and  for  wages, 
and  the  contract  mutual  and  voluntary. 

To  us  in  modern  times,  in  cities  and  villages,  with  a  vast 
population,  unsettled,  changing,  migratory,  it  seems  long ; 
but  in  the  case  of  Abraham  it  would  be  desirable  for  him, 
and  merciful  for  his  dependants  ;  profitable  and  just  on  all 
sides.  And  the  Jewish  system  of  free  servitude,  as  trans- 
mitted from  Abraham,  and  systematized  and  made  permanent 
in  the  Jewish  code  by  Moses,  under  divine  inspiration  and 
direction,  was  exactly  suited  to  those  ancient  times,  with  their 
known  patriarchal  habits  and  manners,  which  were  fostered 
and  established  in  the  Jewish  dispensation.  We  have  the  ex- 
ample of  this  life  in  its  utmost  beauty,  purity,  and  perfection, 
in  the  pastoral  book  of  Ruth,  in  which  we  defy  the  keenest 
scrutinizers,  and  the  most  fanatical  believers  in  the  divine  right 
of  slavery,  to  find  the  least  trace  of  involuntary  servitude. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  book  of  Job.  What  a  volume 
is  contained  in  those  three  verses  in  the  thirty-first  chapter  of 
that  wonderful  book ;  what  a  revelation  of  freedom  and  no- 
bleness !  "  If  I  did  despise  the  cause  of  my  man-servant,  or 
my  maid-servant,  when  they  contended  with  me,  what  then 


56  GOD'S    CHOICE    OF   ABRAHAM. 

shall  I  do  when  God  riseth  up  ?  and  when  he  visiteth,  what 
shall  I  answer  him  ?  Did  not  he  that  made  me  in  the  womb 
make  him  ?  and  did  not  one  fashion  us  in  the  womb  ?"  Com- 
pare these  sentiments  of  justice  and  humanity,  this  acknowl- 
edgment of  natural  equality  and  mutual  right,  this  recognition 
of  mutual  obligation  and  duty,  with  the  tone  of  opinion,  feeling, 
and  language  prevailing  at  the  South  towards  a  race  of  slaves. 
Now,  as  a  patriarch  chosen  of  God,  and  appointed  as  the 
beginning  and  head  of  a  mighty  religious  dispensation,  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  Abraham  was  less  advanced  in  morals  and 
religion,  after  this  divine  call,  than  Job.  Wherever  Abraham 
sojourned  under  the  divine  guidance,  he  certainly  must  have 
carried  and  maintained,  as  the  friend  and  prophet  of  God, 
those  principles  to  which  God  himself  referred,  when  he  said, 
"  I  know  Abraham,  that  he  will  command  his  children  and  his 
household  after  him,  and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
to  do  justice  and  judgment."  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
Abraham  copied  the  institutions  of  the  tribes  around  him,  or 
adopted  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  people  among  whom, 
he  journeyed,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  must  have  had  a  stand- 
ard of  his  own,  and  preserved  his  own  principles.  If  slaves 
were  presented  to  him  by  kings,  they  passed  out  from  the  un- 
godly and  oppressive  rule  under  which  they  had  been  held  as 
chattels,  into  a  household  under  divine  teachings,  where  they 
were  regarded  as  human  beings  with  rights,  and  not  as  articles 
of  pi'operty.  When  Abraham  received  them,  it  is  not  to  be 
imagined  that  he  received  into  his  household,  along  with  them, 
the  slave-code  and  slave-usages,  or  supposed  them  to  be  crea- 
tures without  rights,  whose  service  he  could  take  without 
wages.  Their  slavery  ceased  the  moment  they  became  his 
servants ;  and  the  rite  of  circumcision,  by  which  they  were 
all  equally  consecrated  to  God,  and  adopted  in  the  divine  cov- 
enant as  the  objects  of  his  care  and  favor,  was  in  itself  a 
most  impressive  seal  of  personal  freedom  and  responsibility, 
and  a  recognition  of  the  sacredness  of  individual  rights. 


CHAPTER    V. 

COCKATRICES'  EGGS  LAID  BY  LEXICOGRAPHERS,  AND  HATCHED  BY  COMMENTATORS.— - 
ASSUMPTIONS  AND  MISREPRESENTATIONS,  AND  CONSEQUENT  PREJUDICES  AND  ERRORS. 
—DIFFICULTY  OF  THE  DISLODGMF.NT  OF  OLD  TENANT  LIES. — NECESSITY  OF  TIIEIB  Ex- 

OUCI8M  FROM  TlIEOLOGICAL  LlTERATUBB. 

IT  is  under  the  guidance  of  such  views  that  we  have  to  come 
to  the  consideration  of  the  legislation  in  the  Old  Testament 

O 

on  the  subject  of  the  nature  and  times  of  domestic  servitude. 
When  that  legislation  was  ordained  of  God,  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  slavery  in  the  nation,  either  to  be  regulated  or  extir- 
pated. Its  asserted  existence  is  the  merest  imagination  and 
assumption,  without  one  particle  of  proof;  a  figment  more 
groundless  than  that  of  the  Blue  Laws  of  Connecticut.  They 
who  assume  its  existence,  are  bound  to  show  their  authority 
in  the  clearest  terms,  for  it  is  one  of  those  things  that  can  not 
be  admitted  without  positive  demonstration.  But  in  the  ab- 
sence of  all  evidence,  the  assumption  of  such  an  enormous 
system  of  wickedness  is  monstrous. 

The  very  assumption  rests  on  the  fastening  of  the  word 
bondman  into  the  divine  revelation  in  the  English  version, 
when  there  is  no  such  word  in  the  original ;  and  on  the  use 
of  the  word  slave  in  the  lexicons  and  commentaries,  instead 
of  the  word  servant,  which  is  the  Hebrew  word  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, there  being  no  word  for  slave  in  the  Hebrew  language. 
In  the  history  of  languages,  there  is  hardly  an  instance  of 
greater  perversion  and  violence ;  probably  no  instance  of  so 
vast  a  conclusion,  with  such  dreadful  consequences,  being 
founded  upon  the  wrong  translation  of  a  word.  The  iniquity 
of  American  slavery,  with  all  its  atrocities,  builds  and  perpet- 


58  LEGAL   INVESTIGATION. 

nates  itself  upon  the  sanction  thus  pirated  for  it  in  the  word  of 
God.  The  lexicographers,  translators  and  commentators  have 
acted  as  borers  for  the  slaveholding  interest,  and  have  laid 
the  eggs  of  this  sin  in  the  bark  of  the  word,  where  its  mon- 
strous developments  are  defended  as  the  legitimate  product 
of  God's  righteous  sovereignty.  As  was  said  of  old,  "  None 
calleth  for  justice,  nor  pleadeth  for  truth ;  they  trust  in  vanity 
and  speak  lies ;  they  conceive  mischief  and  bring  forth  iniquity. 
They  hatch  cockatrices'  eggs,  and  weave  the  spider's  web  ;  he 
that  eateth  of  their  eggs  dieth,  and  that  which  is  crushed 
breaketh  out  into  a  viper." 

Without  the  slightest  examination  of  the  original,  without 
a  question  as  to  the  justice  or  injustice  of  slavery,  its  incon- 
sistency with  the  benevolence  commanded  in  the  Scriptures, 
apparently  with  not  a  thought  as  to  the  bearing  of  its  sanc- 
tion upon  the  character  and  claims  of  a  divine  revelation,  or 
its  manner  of  representing  the  attributes  of  God,  the  great 
tide  of  commentators  and  of  readers  has  swept  on.  Some  of 
the  best  writers  have,  in  one  sentence,  adopted  the  common 
representation  of  the  existence  of  slaves  and  slavery  in  Judea, 
and  in  the  next  given  such  details  of  that  slavery,  so  called,  as 
proved  that  there  was  nothing  of  slavery  in  it,  and  that  this 
term  could  not,  without  a  sweeping  falsehood,  be  applied  to  it. 

As  an  instance  of  such  singular  carelessness,  we  may  take 
the  admirable  work  of  Dean  Graves  on  the  Pentateuch  (espe- 
cially the  third  Lecture,  Part  II.,  on  the  Moral  Principles  of 
the  Jewish  Law),  in  which  the  iniquity  and  abominations  of 
modern  slavery  and  of  the  slave  trade  are  denounced  as  "  an 
aggravated  guilt  publicly  known  and  nationally  tolerated,  so 
as  to  fill  the  minds  of  the  pious  and  reflecting  with  the  most 
alarming  expectation  that  the  signal  judgments  of  God  will 
awfully  chastise  such  depravity."  The  writer  says,  speaking 
of  the  justice  of  the  death  penalty,  "On  this  subject  it  is 
necessary  to  observe,  that  as  liberty  is  equally  valuable  with 
life,  the  Jewish  law,  with  the  STRICTEST  EQUITY,  ordained  that 


FALSE   ASSUMPTIONS.  59 

if  any  man  were  convicted  of  attempting  to  reduce  any  fellow- 
citizen  to  slavery,  he  should  be  punished  with  death."  Part 
ii.,  Lect.  iii.,  p.  154.  Yet  in  the  very  same  lecture  he  applies 
the  word  SLAVE  to  the  Jewish  servant,  and  remarks  that  "  the 
penal  code  of  the  Jews  guarded  the  person  of  the  servant 
and  the  slave,  as  well  as  of  the  freeman;  the  injunction, 
'  Whosoever  smiteth  a  man  that  he  die,  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death,'  equally  protected  all."  "The  chastity  of  female 
slaves  was  guarded  by  strict  regulations,  and  no  Jew  could 
be  a  slave  for  longer  than  seven  years."  Again,  "  Compare 
the  Mosaic  regulations  respecting  female  slaves  with  the 
universal  and  abominable  licentiousness  which  polluted  every 
ancient  nation  in  their  intercourse  with  slaves." 

Here  the  Hebrew  servant,  making  a  contract  of  service  for 
six  years,  is  called  a  slave,  and  female  slaves  are  spoken  of  as  if 
such  a  class  really  existed,  at  the  same  time  that  the  very  fact 
of  the  limitation  of  service  to  six  years,  and  the  law  of  free- 
dom when  such  service  has  expired,  demonstrate  that  such  a 
servant  was  in  no  sense  a  slave,  and  such  service  in  no  sense 
slavery !  And  with  the  admitted  and  applauded  fact  that 
God  denounced  the  bringing  of  any  person  into  slavery,  as  a 
crime  to  be  punished  with  death,  yet  is  slavery  spoken  of  as 
one  of  the  institutions  of  the  Mosaic  law,  and,  of  course,  an 
institution  appointed  and  established  of  Jehovah !  That  very 
condition,  into  which,  if  one  man  were  found  reducing  another, 
he  should  be  put  to  death,  is  nevertheless  represented  as  being 
a  condition  of  domestic  society,  not  merely  permitted,  but 
made,  by  the  divine  will,  an  integral  and  essential  fixture  of 
the  social  life ! 

A  still  more  remarkable  instance  occurs  in  Jahn's  Biblical 
Archa3ology,  where  the  writer  gravely  affirms,  in  the  169th 
section  of  his  work,  which  he  has  entitled  Respecting  Slaves, 
that  "it  is  probable  that  some  of  the  patriarchs,  as  was  some- 
times the  case  at  a  later  period,  with  individuals  in  Greece  and 
Italy,  possessed  many  thousands  of  them !"  Again,  he  makes 


60  LEGAL   INVESTIGATION-. 

the  following  astounding  declaration :  "  The  Ganaanites  could 
not  be  held  in  slavery.  For  them,  under  the  then  existing 
circumstances,  slavery  was  regarded  as  too  great  a  privilege  /" 
He  then  proceeds  to  enumerate  some  of  the  ways  in  which 
men  might  find  themselves  endowed  with  this  same  privilege ! 
And  so  the  inarch  of  misrepresentation  and  mistake  has 
continued.*  And  such  has  been  the  indifference  and  fatuity 
of  the  world,  such  the  carelessness  of  commentators,  ready  to 
echo  one  another's  opinions  without  examination,  and  such  the 
power  of  long-continued  prejudice,  that  the  very  apparatus  of 
study,  except  only  the  original  sacred  text  itself,  has  been 
tortured  and  discolored,  so  as  to  throw  false  lights  upon  the 
subject,  and  set  things  in  a  false  position.  It  is  just  like  hav- 
ing your  tables  of  logarithms  falsified,  or  the  glasses  of  your 
telescope  misplaced,  confounded,  or  the  screws  of  your  com- 
pound microscope  reversed,  or  your  chemical  tests  wrongly 
labeled.  Under  the  deception  produced  by  such  undiscov- 
ered and  unquestioned  tricks,  some  of  the  ablest  commenta- 
tors on  the  laws  of  Moses  have  gravely  considered  slavery  as 
an  unquestioned  and  indisputable  fact,  not  less  certain  than 
the  existence  of  leviathan.  The  lexicons  have  translated  the 
word  servant  by  the  word  slave.  The  phrase  buying  a  serv- 

*  See,  for  other  examples,  "  Illus-  SERVANTS  WERE  MANIFESTLY  OF  THIS 

trated  Commentary  on  the  Holy  Bi-  DESCRIPTION." 

ble,"  London :  1840,  vol.  i.,  page  32.  There  can  be  no  excuse  for  such 

Also,  the  comment  on  Gen.,  chapter  extravagant  ignorance  or  falsehood. 

xv.   The  writer  makes  the  monstrous  In  an  interpreter  of  the  word  of  God 

declaration  that  "  the  word  translated  the   carelessness  of  such  assertions 

servant  generally  denotes  what  wo  becomes  worse  than  careless,  when 

should  call  a  stave."  He  then  goes  on  to  the  subject  is  of  so  solemn  a  weight 

say  that  the  mass  of  the  servants  men-  and  importance  as  that  of  the  judg- 

tioned  in  the  Scripture  history  were  ment  in  the  word  of  God  in  regard  to 

absolute  and  perpetual  slaves.     They  slavery.      Under  such  teaching,   no 

and  their  progeny  were  regarded  as  form  or  prevalence  of  error  could  be 

completely  the  property  of  their  mas-  surprising.    It  is  a  demoniac  posses- 

tere,  who  could  exchange  or  sell  them  sion  that  must  be  exorcised,  or  wher- 

at  pleasure,  could  inflict  what  pnnish-  ever  it  remains  it  excludes  the  truth, 

ments  they  pleased,  and  even  in  some  and  foams  and  rages  against  it 
cases  put  them  to  death.  ABRAHAM'S 


FALSE    ASSUMPTIONS. 


ant  has  been  set  in  our  language,  without  any  indication  of 
its  Hebrew  usage,  just  as  if  it  meant  the  traffic  in  human 
beings  as  property.  Learned  and  able  archaeologists,  and 
writers  of  introductions,  have  prepared  and  printed  whole 
sections  on  the  treatment  of  Hebrew  slaves,  and  have  adduced 
passages  as  proof-texts,  which,  rightly  examined  and  inter- 
preted, prove  that  no  such  thing  as  slavery  was  permitted.* 

These  errors  and  prejudices  were  begun  at  a  time  when,  in 
England,  and  all  over  the  world,  not  only  slavery,  but  even 
the  African  slave  trade,  was  sustained  and  practiced  without 
scruple,  even  by  Christians  ;  so  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
assertion  of  slavery  being  sanctioned,  or  even  enjoined  of 

the  latter  qualification  rendering  the 
former  condition  an  impossibility, 
though  the  inconsistency  does  not 
seem  to  have  once  occurred  to  the 
mind  of  the  writer. 

The  manner  in  which  opinion  has 
been  manufactured  and  sustained  is 
exemplified  in  assertions  such  as  the 
following:  "The  Lord  wished  to 
punish  the  Canaanites  and  other  hea- 
then nations,  because  of  their  hea- 
thenism ;  and  of  course  the  Lord  has 
a  right  so  to  do.  His  decree,  there- 
fore is  this :  that  heathens  shall  be  ex- 
posed to  bondage,  and  Israel  shall 
take  them  as  their  slaves." 

If  this  had  been  true,  the  punish- 
ment, in  such  a  case,  would  have 
been  a  reward,  for  the  slavery  was 
freedom  into  which  they  passed ;  and 
the  curse  inflicted  was  their  elevation 
to  all  the  religious  and  civil  privileges 
of  God's  own  chosen  people!  Sin- 
gular enough  to  see  a  writer  declar- 
ing that  God  cursed  and  punished 
the  heathen  for  their  heathenism,  by 
adopting  them  into  his  own  church, 
and  bestowing  franchises  upon  them, 
of  which,  in  then-  heathen  condition, 
they  knew  nothing  I 


*  Home's  Introduction,  vol.  iii.,  page 
419 :  The  most  singular  concatenation 
of  examples  of  such  heedless  mistakes, 
ia  to  be  found  in  the  fifth  chapter  of 
the  fourth  part  of  the  third  volume 
of  this  work.  Assertions  are  made, 
and  texts  referred  to,  as  if  in  proof  of 
them,  which,  on  examination,  refute 
the  assertions.  See,  for  instance,  the 
note  on  Deut.  xv.  18.  The  word 
slave  is  heedlessly  applied  to  persons 
at  voluntary  service,  and  perfectly 
free.  By  such  inaccurate  use  of 
terms,  reverberated  from  writer  to 
writer,  there  has  come  to  be  an  accu- 
mulation of  apparent  authorities  for 
the  opinion  that  slavery  was  estab- 
lished under  God's  sanction.  The 
Hebrew  servants  are  called  slaves,  and 
by  the  same  process,  historians  and 
commentators  on  the  domestic  life 
and  customs  of  the  free  States,  could 
prove  incontrovertibly  that  chattel 
slavery  was  a  domestic  institution, 
universally  established  among  them. 

Bonar  on  Leviticus,  pages  444  and 
463,  speaks  with  the  same  unfortu- 
nat3  carelessness  of  "  every  Hebrew 
slave,"  and  at  the  same  moment  of 
the  freedom  to  "  leave  his  servitude ;" 


62  LEGAL  INVESTIGATION. 

God,  so  startling  or  incredible,  as  to  induce  an  examination 
of  the  Scriptures  in  regard  to  it.  The  great  Hebrew  lexi- 
cographer, Gesenius,  probably  never  gave  it  a  thought,  and 
hardly  had  occasion  to  mark  any  distinction  between  a  serv- 
ant and  a  slave,  as  to  the  question  of  any  morality  or  im- 
morality in  the  relation. 

In  consequence  of  all  this,  we  coine  to  the  Bible  argument 
under  great  disadvantages.  Long  defended  titles  to  opinion, 
supposed  incontestable,  have  to  be  contested,  and  decisions 
based  upon  misinterpretations  have  to  be  set  aside,  and  prece- 
dents established  by  men  of  great  authority  have  to  be  resist- 
ed. We  have  not  only  to  prove  property,  but  to  disprove  false 
claims.  We  have  to  bring  expensive  actions  for  ejectment  be- 
fore we  can  take  possession  of  our  own.  By  a  species  of  squat- 
ter sovereignty,  the  advocates  of  slavery  have  settled  down  in 
the  Scriptures,  as  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  did  in  Moses'  seat, 
with  their  traditions,  under  the  authority  of  father  Abraham ; 
and  possession  being  nine  tenths  of  the  law,  it  takes  nine  times 
as  much  argument  and  conscience  to  dislodge,  as  it  did  confi- 
dence and  ignorance  to  squat. 

Even  if  there  had  been  such  a  thing  as  slavery  among  the 
Hebrews,  God's  allowance  of  it  among  them  would  have  been 
no  justification  of  American  slavery,  no  more  than  Noah's  plant- 
ing a  vineyard  would  justify  our  getting  drunk  on  cider-brandy. 
Even  supposing  God  to  have  admitted,  for  a  season,  a  degree 
of  slavery,  under  laws  for  its  regulation  and  abolition,  suppos- 
ing the  Hebrews  to  have  held  slaves  by  permission,  this  could 
be  no  justification  for  an  American  slaveholder  retaining  the 
African  race  in  bondage,  or  holding  any  human  being  as  prop- 
erty. To  plead  Hebrew  slavery  in  excuse  or  authority  for 
Amei'ican,  is  just  to  act  like  a  rumseller  in  one  of  the  cities  of 
Scotland,  convicted  of  selling  bad  liquors ;  but  he  alleged  in 
defense  of  the  practice  the  fact  stated  in  the  second  chapter 
of  John,  verse  tenth,  Every  man  at  the  beginning  doth  set  forth 
good  wine,  and  when  men  have  well  drunk,  then  that  which 


FALSE  ASSUMPTIONS.  63 

is  worse ;  but  thou  hast  kept  the  good  wine  until  now.  He 
said,  they  must  have  used  up  a  great  deal  of  bad  wine  in  this 
process,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  said  not  one  word  in  condemna- 
tion of  it  to  the  bridegroom ;  and  it  was  altogether  as  proper 
for  him  to  provide  bad  spirits  for  his  customers  as  it  was  for  that 
family  to  provide  it  for  their  guests.  That  is  just  the  amount 
of  the  whole  alleged  Bible  argument  in  regard  to  slavery, 
namely,  that  if  the  Hebrews,  at  God's  command,  or  under  his 
revealed  permission,  could  enslave  the  heathen,  then  the  Amer- 
icans, without  God's  permission  or  command,  have  the  same 
right  to  enslave  Africans ;  an  attempted  justification  so  weak, 
so  worthless,  so  unprincipled  and  hypocritical,  that  it  is  hardly 
fit  for  a  sober  notice. 

It  is  a  reproach  to  the  word  of  God  to  admit  for  a  moment 
that  a  thing  so  unjust  and  full  of  evil  has  any  existence  or 
sanction  whatever  in  it.  And  it  has  not.  And  on  this  ground 
we  stand.  We  affirm  that  at  the  very  outset  of  the  Hebrew 
legislation  there  was  no  such  thing  as  slavery  among  the  He- 
brews to  be  regulated.  Not  one  text  can  be  brought  to  prove 
its  existence,  nor  any  intimation  that  it  was  any  way  in  prac- 
tice wten  God  revealed  the  Hebrew  code  of  laws  to  Moses. 
The  whole  spirit  of  the  Bible,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  against 
it.  The  first  legislation  in  regard  to  domestic  servitude  was 
for  freedom,  not  slavery ;  it  was  to  guard  against  slavery,  and 
prevent  the  possibility  of  its  coming  in  from  abroad. 

God  himself  referred  to  that  great  fact  in  the  announcement 
of  his  last  vengeance  on  the  kingdom  and  people  for  their  at- 
tempt to  set  up  slavery  instead  of  liberty;  for  that  was  just 
the  essence  of  their  crime.  I  made  a  covenant  of  liberty  in 
the  day  that  I  brought  your  fathers  out  of  Egypt,  out  of  the 
house  of  bondage,  liberty  every  man  to  his  neighbor.  The 
covenant  so  made,  so  established,  and  so  referred  to,  was  of 
freedom  against  slavery,  not  in  toleration  or  regulation  of  it. 
The  nation  was  about  to  enter  on  a  series  of  conquests,  and  to 
be  brought  in  contact  with  other  nations,  where  slavery  might 


64  LEGAL  INVESTIGATION. 

be  found  prevailing,  and  where  temptations  would  arise  to 
practice  and  establish  the  iniquity  themselves,  and  under  those 
circumstances,  in  preparation  for  future  junctures,  such  admi- 
rable laws  were  passed,  as  rendered  slavery  and  the  slave 
traffic,  either  domestic  or  foreign,  either  of  Hebrews  or  hea- 
then, impossible.  If  those  laws  were  obeyed,  then,  under 
God's  old  covenant,  as  well  as  new,  such  a  crime  as  that  of 
holding  men  as  property,  or  maintaining  the  claim  of  property 
in  man,  was  impossible. 

There  are  volumes  of  commentaries,  from  which  it  may  be 
plainly  seen  what  blindness  and  insensibility  have  rested  even 
on  the  church  of  God  in  regard  to  this  subject,  and  what  ex- 
travagances, yea,  what  madnesses  of  opinion,  and  complica- 
tions of  falsehood,  have  grown  out  of  such  stupidity  and  ignor- 
ance, what  monstrosities  even  good  men  have  gravely  and 
calmly  swallowed,  what  doctrines,  as  bad  as  the  vilest  immo- 
ralities of  the  Hindoo  or  heathen  mythology,  have  been  ac- 
cepted as  parts  of  divine  revelation.  As  a  remarkable  instance, 
we  may  refer  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Pyle's  paraphrastic  commentary 
on  the  Scriptures,  published  at  London  in  several  volumes  in 
1717.  In  the  first  volume,  in  the  commentary  on  the  twenty- 
first  chapter  of  Exodus,  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  system 
of  slavery  was  an  established  institution  of  the  state,  and,  as  a 
domestic  institution,  committed  of  God  to  the  fostering  care 
of  the  government  and  the  magistrates,  for  its  perpetuity  by 
natural  increase,  the  author  thus  explains  the  fourth  verse  in 
regard  to  the  Hebrew  servant's  family  relations.  "  If  a  wife," 
says  he,  "  were  procured  him  by  his  master,  or  appointed  him 
by  the  magistrates  that  sold  him,  only  to  breed  slaves  5y,  then, 
if  he  leaves  his  service,  he  shall  leave  the  wife  and  children,  as 
the  master's  proper  goods  and  possessions  /"  Could  there  be 
a  manifestation  of  more  profound  insensibility,  darkness,  and 
consequent  perversion  of  the  moral  sense,  than  this  ? 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  Christian  man,  a  minister  of 
the  gospel,  certainly  not  ignorant  of  the  first  and  lowest  laws 


FALSE   ASSUMPTIONS.  65 

and  principles  of  justice  and  of  moral  purity,  could  put  such  a 
monstrosity  as  this  in  writing,  as  part  of  a  divine  revelation  for 
the  teaching  of  virtue,  benevolence,  and  piety.  How  any  man 
could  deliberately  affirm  that  such  a  diabolical  state  of  society 
as  this  enactment  would  constitute  was  sanctioned  of  Heaven, 
was  protected,  authorized,  commanded  by  a  holy  God,  passes 
our  comprehension;  how  he  could  suppose  that  other  men, 
with  an  enlightened  moral  sense,  could  receive  such  enact- 
ments of  impurity  and  cruelty  as  the  dictates  and  records  of 
divine  inspiration,  worthy  of  a  solemn  commentary,  is  equally 
amazing.  But,  with  a  theological  literature  baptized  in  such 
opinions,  the  tenacity  and  despotism  are  not  strange,  with 
which  the  supposition  of  there  being  some  sanction  of  slavery 
in  the  Scriptures  has  knotted  itself  upon  the  general  mind,  has 
become  rooted  and  grounded  as  a  common  principle,  an  axiom, 
a  root  of  bitterness  and  error,  a  possession,  indeed,  by  the 
father  of  lies,  and  the  murderer  from  the  beginning. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  under  such  teachings,  and  from  a  bap- 
tism with  such  habits  of  thinking,  and  such  doctrines  of  devils, 
as  the  supposed  water  of  life,  a  man  like  John  Newton  should 
have  been  enabled  even  to  continue  in  the  slave  trade  for  some 
time  after  his  conversion,  without  any  compunction,  any  mis- 
giving, any  discovery  or  sense  of  its  injustice,  its  sinfulness 
against  God?  We  have  the  same  insensibility  to  contend 
against  now,  and  the  same  difficulty  to  persuade  men  to  go 
back  of  the  fact  of  present  lawful  possession,  and  inquire  if 
the  original  guilt  of  man-stealing  does  not,  by  the  divine  law, 
as  well  as  by  common  justice,  inhere  in  the  very  claims  of  a 
present  property  in  man,  as  that  same  crime.  We  have  to  cut 
down  a  whole  forest  of  lies  before  we  can  open  a  pathway  to 
the  truth.  It  is  therefore  essential  that  we  take  slavery  and 
the  slaveholder,  and  carry  both  the  sin  and  its  abettors  back  to 
its  reprobated  origin,  and  set  them  under  the  judgment  of  the 
word  of  God. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

EXAMINATION  OF  ENACTMENTS. — EXODUS,  xxr.  2-6,  AND  xx.  21. — PERVERSION  OF  THE 
MEANING  OP  THESE  PASSAGES. — ALL  CONTRACTS  VOLUNTARY. — PURCHASE  OF  SER- 
VICES, NOT  PERSONS. — MEANING  OF  TUB  PHRASE,  HE  is  HIS  MONEY. 

"  Now  these  are  the  judgments  which  thou  shalt  set  before 
them.  If  thou  buy  a  Hebrew  servant,  six  years  be  shall  serve, 
and  in  the  seventh  he  shall  go  out  free  for  nothing.  If  he 
came  in  by  himself,  he  shall  go  out  by  himself;  if  he  were 
married,  then  his  wife  shall  go  out  with  him.  If  his  master 
have  given  him  a  wife,  and  she  have  borne  him  sons  or  daugh- 
ters, the  wife  and  her  children  shall  be  her  master's,  and  he 
shall  go  out  by  himself.  And  if  the  servant  shall  plainly  say, 
I  love  my  master,  my  wife,  and  my  children  ;  I  will  not  go  out 
free ;  then  his  master  shall  bring  him  unto  the  judges  ;  he  shall 
also  bring  him  to  the  door,  or  unto  the  door  post ;  and  his 
master  shall  bore  his  ear  through  with  an  awl ;  and  he  shall 
serve  him  for  ever."  Exodus,  xxi.  1-6. 

If  we  should  take  the  first  clause  in  this  body  of  enactments, 
and  connect  it  with  the  last,  thus,  If  thou  buy  a  Hebrew  ser- 
vant, his  master  shall  bore  his  ear  through  with  an  awl,  and 
he  shall  serve  him  for  ever ;  it  would  be  no  unfair  example  of 
the  torture  by  which  it  is  attempted  to  pervert  Scripture,  and 
sanctify  slavery  from  the  word  of  God.  In  the  first  place,  there 
is  the  phrase,  If  thou  buy  /  in  the  second  place,  there  is  the 
phrase,  He  shall  serve  him  for  ever.  What  phrases  in  the  En- 
glish language  could  describe  slavery,  it  might  be  asked,  if 
these  do  not  ? 

But  a  candid  and  careful  reader,  even  of  the  English  alone, 


VOLUNTARY   CONTRACTS.  67 

on  reading  only  the  first  verse  in  this  series  of  enactments  in 
regard  to  domestic  service,  would  see  at  once  the  falsehood  of 
any  conclusion  of  property  as  the  meaning  of  the  word  buy  • 
for  this  buying  is  only  a  contract  of  service  for  six  years ;  six 
years  shall  he  serve,  and  in  the  seventh  lie  shall  go  out  free  for 
nothing. 

In  the  second  place,  he  would  see  the  impossibility  of  prop- 
erty,, from  the  fact  of  its  being  a  voluntary  contract  between 
two  persons,  equal  parties  in  the  contract,  and  not  with  refer- 
ence to  a  third  person.  The  bargain  for  a  slave  is  the  purchase 
from  a  third  person,  while  the  person  bought  stands  by  as  a 
chattel,  a  thing,  to  be  disposed  of  with  no  more  consultation 
of  himself  than  if  he  were  a  wheelbarrow.  There  is  no  such 
traffic  as  this  admitted  in  the  Scriptures.  Such  buying  and 
selling  is  forbidden  as  man-stealing,  to  be  punished  with  death ; 
and  such  buying  and  selling  is  the  great  sin  of  our  country, 
against  God  and  man.  There  is  never  a  case  of  the  purchase 
of  a  servant  from  a  third  person,  as  a  piece  of  property  is 
purchased;  but  only  the  service  of  the  servant,  for  a  limited, 
specified  time,  was  purchased,  and  always  from  himself,  the  sole 
owner. 

In  the  third  place,  the  contract,  in  the  words,  he  shall  serve 
him  for  ever,  is  equally  demonstrated  to  be  a  purely  voluntary 
contract,  and  for  a  limited,  specified  time,  and  no  longer.  But 
how  do  you  prove  this,  when  the  language  is  unlimited,  for 
ever?  Simply  by  the  institution  of  the  jubilee.  At  the  re- 
currence of  each  fiftieth  year  liberty  was  proclaimed  through- 
out all  the  land,  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof.  Consequently, 
by  that  known  institution  it  is  incontrovertible  that  the  words, 
he  shall  serve  him  for  ever,  mean  only  he  shall  serve  him  to  the 
longest  period  remaining  for  any  service  between  that  time  of 
the  contract  and  the  next  coming  year  of  jubilee. 

Just  so  with  that  passage  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  45,  46,  which 
the  defenders  of  slavery  are  accustomed  so  triumphantly  to 
fling  in  the  face  of  those  who  demonstrate  its  inherent,  eter- 


68  EXAMINATION    OP    ENACTMENTS. 

nal  and  immutable  wickedness.  "  Moreover,  of  the  children 
of  the  stranger  that  do  sojourn  among  you,  of  them  shall  ye 
buy,  and  of  their  families  that  are  with  you,  which  they  begat 
in  your  land ;  and  they  shall  be  your  possession.  And  ye  shall 
take  them  as  an  inheritance  for  your  children  after  you,  to  in- 
herit a  possession  ;  they  shall  be  your  bondmen  for  ever."  This 
the  defender  of  slavery  avers  to  be  proof  positive  of  perpetual 
bondage ;  and  if  he  can  but  succeed  in  making  his  hearer  ignore, 
or  exclude  from  court,  the  corresponding  and  explanatory  pas- 
sages, if  he  can  prevent  him  from  going  behind  the  English 
phrases,  and  showing  what  is  meant,  if  he  can  persuade  him 
into  a  judgment,  without  investigation  of  the  merits  of  the 
case,  he  can  pi-ove  the  existence  of  slavery  to  the  satisfaction 
of  any  man  who  is  willing  to  darken-  his  conscience  and  handle 
the  word  of  God  deceitfully,  that  he  may  indulge  his  sins  in 
peace. 

But  the  same  investigation  pursued  as  with  the  other  pas- 
sage, dissipates  the  darkness,  removes,  every  vestige  of  invol- 
untary bondage,  and  leaves  no  manner  of  doubt  as  to  the 
buying  being  simply  a  voluntary  contract  between  two  parties 
of  service  for  a  limited  and  perfectly  definite  time,  guarded  by 
the  jubilee  itself  from  all  possibility  of  perpetuity.  The  inves- 
tigation proves  that  the  buying  of  servants  among  the  children 
and  families  of  the  heathen  sojourning  in  the  land  no  more 
meant  slavery  for  them, than  it  did  for  the  Hebrews.  The  He- 
brews were  no  more  permitted  to  make  slaves  of  them,  than 
they  of  the  Hebrews.  The  word  for  servant  is  the  same.  The 
process  of  obtaining  servants  is  the  same.  The  heathen  were 
perfectly  free  to  serve  or  not  serve,  to  go  or  stay ;  and  if  they 
were  able,  they  had  the  same  right  to  buy  Hebrews,  if  the 
Hebrews  were  willing  to  enter  their  service,  that  the  Hebrews 
had  to  buy  them.  Again  and  again  one  manner  of  law  was 
commanded  both  for  the  heathen  and  the  Hebrews.  "  Love 
ye  therefore  the  stranger,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of 
Egypt.  Thou  shalt  not  pervert  the  judgment  of  the  stranger, 


EIGHTS   OF   STRANGERS.  69 

nor  of  the  fatherless,  but  thou  shalt  remember  that  thou  wast 
a  bondman  in  Egypt,  and  the  Lord  thy  God  redeemed  thee 
thence;  therefore  I  command  thee  to  do  this  thing.  Thou 
shalt  not  oppress  the  stranger.  And  if  a  stranger  sojourn 
with  thee  in  your  land,  ye  shall  not  vex  him.  But  the  stran- 
ger that  dwelleth  with  you  shall  be  unto  you  as  one  born 
among  you,  and  thou  shalt  love  him  as  thyself,  for  ye  were 
strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt." 

Thou  shalt  love  him  as  thyself.  By  the  interpretation  of 
those  who  seek  to  falsify  the  word  of  God  for  a  sanction  of 
the  wickedness  of  slavery,  this  means,  Thou  shalt  thrust  him 
into  a  worse  bondage  than  ever  thou  thyself  didst  endure  in 
Egypt.  Thou  shalt  take  all  his  rights  from  him,  thou  shalt 
buy  and  sell  him  as  a  camel,  or  a  camel's  furniture  ;  thou  shalt 
make  a  mere  chattel  of  him.  Thou  shalt  range  up  and  down 
the  land,  as  a  tyrant  over  him,  with  him  for  thy  lawful  prop- 
erty and  possession.  Thou  shalt  lay  thy  grasp  upon  his  chil- 
dren whenever  and  wherever  it  pleases  thee,  and  buy  and  sell 
them,  for  the  slaves  of  thy  children  to  the  latest  generation. 
Thou  art  delivered  and  appointed  to  exercise  this  cruelty 
upon  the  heathen,  and  to  set  an  example  of  God's  benevolence 
and  righteousness  in  these  abominations  in  the  sight  of  all  the 
nations. 

If  such  blasphemy  were  credited,  how  could  it  do  other- 
wise than  make  infidels  out  of  all  honest  men,  for  who  could 
accept  such  immoral  horrors  as  the  stuff  of  a  divine  revelation  ? 
It  could  be  only  a  satanic,  selfish  exultation,  that  could  take 
delight  in  the  discovery  of  such  sanction  of  sin,  and  a  dishon- 
esty equally  satanic  that  could  make  a  man  boast  of  such 
sanction,  as  a  proof,  satisfactory  to  his  mind,  that  the  book 
containing  it  carne  from  a  holy,  just,  and  righteous  God.  Yet 
there  is  such  wickedness  among  men.  It  is  described  in  the 
fiftieth  Psalm :  "  Thou  thoughtest  that  I  was  altogether 
such  an  one  as  thyself.  When  thou  sawest  a  thief,  then  thou 


70  EXAMINATION   OF   ENACTMENTS. 

consentedst  with  him,  and  hast  been  partaker  with  adulterers. 
What  hast  thou  to  do  to  declare  my  name  ?" 

Just  so,  again,  with  the  passage  in  Exodus,  xx.  20,  21  :  "If 
a  man  smite  his  servant,  or  his  maid,  with  a  rod,  and  he  die 
under  his  hand,  he  shall  surely  be  punished.  Notwithstand- 
ing, if  he  continue  a  day  or  two,  he  shall  not  be  punished,  for 
he  is  his  money."  What  can  be  greater  proof  of  property  in 
man  than  this  ?  exclaims  the  slaveholder ;  for  he  is  his  money. 
But  now  if  you  look  back  to  the  second  verse,  and  trace  the 
context,  you  find  it  is  purchased  voluntary  service  that  is 
spoken  of,  and  nothing  else.  It  is  the  service  of  the  Hebrew, 
who  could  not  possibly  be  a  slave,  or  be  bought  or  sold  as 
property ;  but  that  limited  service  being  bought  and  paid  for 
beforehand,  for  six  years,  the  man  from  whom,  it  is  owing  is 
described  as  the  master's  money,  because  he  had  invested 
money  for  his  services  in  hiring  him  for  six  years ;  and  it  is 
argued  that  he  being  worth  so  much  to  his  master,  for  a  ser- 
vice contracted  and  paid  for,  that  master  could  not  be  sup- 
posed to  have  intended  to  kill  him ;  and  therefore,  though  it 
would  be  proper  to  punish  his  cruelty,  yet  not  to  punish  him 
for  murder,  a  crime  which  he  did  not  intend  to  commit.  The 
presumption  that  he  did  not,  is  founded  on  the  supposition 
that  he  could  not  have  intended  to  throw  away  his  own 
money,  which  he  would  have  done,  in  killing  him,  as  truly  as 
if  he  had  thrown  it  into  the  Jordan  or  the  Dead  Sea.  If  he 
had  intended  to  kill  him,  he  would  have  done  it  at  once  ;  if  such 
were  his  object  and  his  malice,  he  would  have  murdered  him 
on  the  spot,  and  would  have  been  put  to  death  for  it.  But 
the  continuance  of  the  smitten  sei'vant  for  a  season,  affords  a 
second  presumption  that  the  killing  was  unintentional.  Such 
presumptions  not  unfrequently  shield  a  criminal,  justly,  from 
the  highest  penalty  of  the  law,  because  they  present  to  the 
jury  a  doubt,  which  must  go  in  favor  of  the  prisoner.  When 
it  is  said,  he  shall  not  be  punished,  it  can  hardly  be  supposed 
to  mean  that  no  punishment  shall  be  inflicted  at  all,  but 


EIGHTS    OF    SERVANTS.  71 

simply  that  he  shall  not  be  avenged  with  the  blood-vengeance 
by  the  avenger,  but  with  some  lesser  penalty.  The  case  in 
the  verses  next  preceding  is  similar,  and  throws  still  more 
light  upon  the  matter.  "  If  men  strive  together,  and  one 
smite  another  with  a  stone,  or  with  his  fist,  and  he  die  not, 
but  keepeth  his  bed  ;  if  he  rise  again,  and  walk  abroad  upon 
his  staff,  then  shall  he  that  smote  him  be  quit ;  only  he  shall 
pay  for  the  loss  of  his  time,  and  shall  cause  him  to  be  thor- 
oughly healed." 

Not  only  does  the  enactment  under  consideration  prove  that 
the  transaction  of  buying,  so  called  in  our  English  translation, 
excluded  the  possibility  of  property  in  man,  but  it  inciden- 
tally brings  out  what  will  be  more  definitely  noted,  the  sacred- 
ness  of  marriage  among  servants  as  among  masters.  There 
could  be  no  separation  of  husband  and  wife.  Husbands,  love 
your  wives  ;  wives,  obey  your  husbands ;  were  privileges, 
duties,  obligations,  as  inviolable  for  servants  as  for  masters. 
The  marriage  tie  alone,  with  the  domestic  constitution  grow- 
ing out  of  it,  was  a  shield  and  sanctity  of  independence  and 
freedom  for  servants,  that  rendered  the  degradation  of  them 
into  slaves,  and  the  claim  of  property  in  man  over  them,  im- 
possible. This,  of  itself,  demonstrates  the  crime  and  guilt  of 
American  slaveholding.  The  slaveholder  is  hunted  in  the 
word  of  God  by  principles  and  texts  surer  than  his  own  blood- 
hounds ;  nothing  in  Divine  revelation  but  holds  him,  in  the 
guilt  of  his  claim  of  property  in  his  fellow-man,  to  an  inexor- 
able retribution. 

The  passages  sometimes  adduced  in  support  or  sanction  of 
men's  wickedness  prove  the  very  opposite,  and  cut  the  pre- 
sumptuous, audacious  sinner  to  the  heart.  The  word  of  God, 
in  the  hands  of  these  daring,  but  awkward  ignoramuses,  is 
like  a  South  American  boomerang.  They  think  they  have 
seized  a  great  passage  for  their  purpose,  and  are  shying  it 
away  at  their  adversaries ;  and  at  first  it  goes  this  way,  then 
that,  then  seems  as  if  it  were  making  straight  for  the  target, 


72  EXAMINATION   OP  ENACTMENTS. 

when,  in  the  most  astounding  manner,  by  an  involution  of 
eccentric  hidden  law  and  power  of  right  motion,  it  comes 
back  upon  themselves.  The  man  who  thought  he  was  going 
to  prostrate  his  opponent  with  it  is  knocked  down  by  it. 
When  a  great  piratical  sinner,  or  captain  of  one  of  Satan's 
men-of-war,  undertakes  to  grapple  upon  his  intended  victim  a 
coil  of  perverted  Scriptures,  it  sometimes  runs  out  almost 
as  quick  as  lightning,  and  carries  himself  overboard  before  he 
is  aware  of  the  entanglement,  or  can  get  his  legs  out  of  the 
knot.  It  is  a  pithy  proverb,  Give  rope  to  a  villain,  and  he  '11 
hang  himself.  He  doubles  and  twists  the  noose  for  others, 
and  holds  the  rope  ready  for  the  body  of  his  victim  ;  but  sud- 
denly and  unexpectedly  the  noose  is  knotted  about  his  own 
neck,  and  at  the  nearest  gallows  tree  of  God's  providence  the 
fool  is  swinging  in  the  air,  till  his  bones  rattle  and  bleach  for 
a  universal  warning. 

So  men  are  holden  by  the  cords  of  their  own  sins,  and  their 
own  snares  entrap  them.  There  is  the  same  fatality  in  a 
wicked  state  policy,  only  this  takes  a  broader  sweep,  and  the 
principles  of  an  immoral  expediency  close  upon  their  authors 
as  the  lid  of  a  great  sepulcher.  The  wicked  precedents  and 
laws  run  on  for  a  while  in  great  seeming  prosperity,  but  at 
length  they  come  round  face  to  face  in  conflict,  as  great  glar- 
ing hyenas,  with  the  victim  of  their  rage  right  between  them, 
the  nation  and  the  church  that  set  them  on  fire,  and  sanctified 
them,  to  be  devoured  by  them.  "  Wo  to  thee  that  spoilest, 
and  thou  wast  not  spoiled ;  when  thou  hast  done  spoiling, 
then  they  shall  spoil  thee."  Like  Daniel's  lions,  when  the  au- 
thors of  such  wickedness  are  given  up  to  its  operation,  their 
own  agents  will  break  all  their  bones  in  pieces  before  even 
they  have  reached  the  bottom  of  their  own  den  of  villainy. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


IDIOMS  or  BUYING  AND  SELLING  IN  THE  CASK  OP  HEBREW  SERVANTS.—  DEMONBTBA- 
TION  OP  THEIR  MEANING.  —  THE  SAME  AS  TO  HEATHEN  SERVANTS.  —  FAMILIES  ov 
SERVANTS.  —  KIOIITS  OF  HUSBAND,  FATHER,  MOTHER,  CHILDREN.  —  THE  CONTRACT 
BEFOKE  JUDGES. 


proceed  with  the  analysis  of  the  ground-passage  in  the 
system  of  enactments  in  Exodus,  xxi.  2-6,  both  for  develop- 
ment of  the  argument,  and  removal  of  objections. 

The  very  first  command  limited  the  ordinary  term  of  serv- 
ice to  six  years,  but,  at  the  same  time,  made  an  enlarged  term 
optional  as  a  matter  of  choice  and  agreement,  solemnly  entered 
into  before  judges.  We  proceed  to  draw  out  the  argument 
from  this  first  stand-point,  and  it  carries  us  nearly  over  the 
whole  ground.  If  thou  buy  a  Hebreu±  servant.  The  first 
question  arising  is  this  :  From  whom  is  the  purchase  made  ? 
If  from  a  third  party,  considered  as  an  owner,  this  would  go 
far  to  prove  the  existence  of  some  kind  of  slavery.  This, 
then,  is  a  matter  of  the  very  first  importance.  But  a  second 
question  arises,  as  to  the  nature  of  the  purchase,  the  determi- 
nation of  which  goes  far  to  settle  the  first  question,  and  is 
likewise  of  the  highest  importance.  Is  the  buying  which  is 
here  brought  to  light  a  transfer  of  ownership,  such  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  indicate  by  the  terms  buying  and  selling,  or  is 
there  a  peculiarity  in  the  usage  of  the  Hebrew  term,  which 
can  not  be  conveyed  by  our  word  buy,  but  on  the  contrary  a 
wrong  meaning  is  conveyed  ?  The  closest  examination  of  the 
Hebrew  usage,  along  with  the  known  tenure  of  the  service  in 
question,  proves  that  the  word  does  not  mean  to  purchase  as 
an  article  of  property,  the  idea  of  property  in  a  person  not 


74  IDIOMS   OF   BUYING   AND   SELLING. 

being  comprehended  in  the  transaction,  nor  admissible.  The 
word  in  the  original  is  the  same  which  is  used  when  it  is  said 
that  the  prophet  Hosea  bought  his  wife,  not,  certainly,  of  any 
third  party  who  owned  her — for  in  this  astonishing  instance 
she  was  under  no  man's  authority  or  power — but  of  herself,  by 
agreement  with  herself.  Just  so,  Boaz  bought  Ruth,  certainly 
not  of  any  third  party,  nor  as  an  article  of  property.  So  in 
Ecclesiastes,  ii.  7,  "7"  got  me  servants  and  handmaids,"  the 
same  word  translated  in  the  case  before  us,  buy,  but  meaning 
simply  I  obtained,  with  precisely  the  same  signification  as 
when  we  say,  I  have  got  me  a  good  cook  or  a  good  chamber- 
maid, or,  I  have  obtained  an  excellent  servant.  If  a  gentle- 
man in  this  country  should  hire  a  coachman,  agreeing  to  keep 
him  for  six  years,  and  he,  on  his  part,  to  stay  for  six  years,  he 
might  just  as  properly  be  said  to  have  purchased  his  coach- 
man as  any  Hebrew  gentleman  to  have  bought  his  servant. 
This  word,  then,  does  not  mean  traffic,  as  of  an  article  of  prop- 
erty, but  indicates  a  bargain,  free  and  voluntary  on  both 
sides ;  a  bargain  between  two,  and  not  the  transfer  of  a 
chattel  from  the  o\*ipership  of  one  person  to  the  ownership 
of  another  person  as  his  property. 

This,  then,  of  itself,  goes  far  to  determine  the  first  question 
in  regard  to  buying  a  Hebrew  servant,  namely,  of  whom? 
The  answer  is,  not  of  any  third  party,  but  of  himself,  develop- 
ing this  grand  peculiarity  in  the  phraseology  used  as  to  obtain- 
ing servants,  that  the  person  hiring  himself  as  a  servant  is  de- 
scribed in  Hebrew  idiom,  in  relation  to  the  person  engaging 
his  services,  as  selling  himself,  and  himself  receiving  the  pur- 
chase money.  He  simply  sells  his  services  for  so  long  a  time, 
but  the  Hebrew  idiom  takes  the  Niphal  form  of  the  verb  to 
sell,  and  describes  him  as  selling  himself,  though  he  is  as  truly 
a  freeman,  and  as  far  from  being  a  slave,  or  an  article  of  prop- 
erty, as  ever.  And  the  person  obtaining  his  services,  and  pay- 
ing for  them,  is  said  to  purchase  him  of  himself,  not  of  any 
owner  or  master  to  whom  he  belongs,  for  he  belongs  to  him- 


IDIOMS    OF    BUYING    AND    SELLING.  75 

self,  and  is  perfectly  free  to  hire  himself  or  not  to  whomsoever 
he  pleases. 

This  idiom  and  meaning  are  proved,  1st,  from  the  similar 
usage  of  the  terms  in  other  transactions,  as  we  have  seen ; 
2d,  from  comparison  with  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  47,  where  the 
case  is  supposed  of  a  free  Hebrew  getting  poor,  and,  as  our 
translation  has  it,  being  sold,  that  is,  in  the  original,  selling 
himself  unto  thee.  Of  course,  being  a  freeman,  no  third  party 
could  sell,  or  has  any  power  over  him,  and  yet  this  case  is  one 
in  which  an  ordinary  reader,  from  the  very  necessity  growing 
out  of  the  form  of  the  translation  (be  sold  unto  thee),  would 
suppose  a  sale  from  a  third  party.  The  second  case  is  of  a 
Hebrew  in  like  manner  falling  poor,  and  going  into  service,  in 
consequence,  in  the  family  of  a  heathen,  a  stranger,  and  the 
same  expression  precisely  in  the  original  is  used  to  describe 
the  contract,  but  in  this  case  it  is  translated  sell  himself  unto 
the  stranger — no  third  party  intimated. 

3d.  A  third  pi-oof  demonstrative  of  the  idiom  and  mean- 
ing, as  excluding  any  third  party,  is  the  prescribed  time  of  the 
contract,  six  years,  no  more,  no  less.  These  six  years  in  the 
man's  life  nobody  owned,  nobody  was  the  master  of,  but  him- 
self. He  only  could  sell  them.  The  bargain  for  his  services 
was  made  with  himself,  not  with  any  third  party.  Yet  he  is 
described  as  being  sold,  and  the  man  who  engages  his  services 
is  described  as  buying  him. 

4th.  The  same  demonstration  is  renewed  in  the  fact  that 
his  master,  at  the  end  of  six  years,  if  he  enters  into  a  new  and 
longer  contract  for  his  services,  has  to  buy  them  over  again 
of  himself,  not  of  any  other  person  ;  no  third  party  comes  in, 
nor  does  the  master  gain  any  right  of  possession  by  the  fact 
of  six  years'  previous  service.  The  servant  is  as  free  to  enter 
into  a  new  contract  as  the  master. 

This  matter  being  settled,  the  question  comes  up,  whether 
the  same  idiom  prevailed  as  to  the  obtaining  of  heathen  serv- 
ants, and  it  is  proved  that  it  did.  If  thou  buy  a  heathen  serv- 


76  IDIOMS    OF    BUYING    AND    SELLING. 

ant,  would  mean  precisely  the  same,  as  to  the  parties  and  the 
purchase,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrew  servant.  But  inas- 
much as  nothing  is  here  specified  in  regard  to  any  other  than 
Hebrew  servants,  it  might  have  been  argued  that  there  was 
no  allowance  of  heathen  servants  at  all  among  the  Hebrews, 
because  every  part  of  this  domestic  arrangement  was  so  care- 
fully ordered  by  law.  Accordingly,  the  legal  provision  was 
inserted,  and  the  terms  on  which  the  heathen  might  be  ob- 
tained for  servants  were  explicitly  settled.  And  the  phrase- 
ology employed  in  regard  to  them,  as  to  buying  them,  and  as 
to  their  selling  themselves,  has  precisely  the  same  meaning, 
and  no  signification  of  slavery  in  it.  In  their  case,  there  could 
no  more  be  the  buying  of  servants  of  a  third  party  than  in 
the  case  of  the  Hebrews.  There  were  express  provisions 
against  such  an  enormity,  of  which  provisions  the  great  fugi- 
tive slave  law  in  behalf  of  servants,  not  of  masters,  constituted 
one ;  which  law,  if  we  apply  it  exclusively  to  the  heathen,  as  some 
contend,  made  the  slavery  of  the  heathen  absolutely  impossi- 
ble, bringing  it  to  an  end  the  moment  they  touched  the  He- 
brew soil.  For,  by  that  fugitive  law,  any  heathen  slave  was  at 
liberty  to  renounce  the  service  of  his  master  at  any  moment, 
and  betake  himself  to  the  Hebrews  for  protection,  and  every 
Hebrew  was  bound  to  protect  his  freedom.  So  far,  therefore, 
were  the  Hebrews  from  the  wholesale  privilege  of  making 
slaves  of  the  heathen,  or  buying  them  as  slaves,  that  they  were 
by  law  compelled  to  receive  and  shelter  as  free,  and  to  pre- 
serve and  defend  from  oppression,  every  heathen  slave  who 
preferred  freedom.  No  heathen  could  be  obtained  by  any  He- 
brew as  a  servant  without  his  own  consent,  without  a  free 
contract  entered  into,  and  the  time  specified  and  the  wages 
paid. 

Now,  then,  a  .third  point  is  this  very  point  of  the  length  of 
time.  "If  thou  buy  a  Hebrew  servant,  six  years  shall  he 
serve  /"  but  there  may  be  a  longer  period  of  service,  if  he 
chooses  to  engage  for  it,  and  if  the  master  agrees  to  it  also  on 


IDIOMS    OF    BUYING    AND    SELLING.  77 

bis  part.  And  this  longer  period  was  also  carefully  and  strictly 
defined,  and  the  perfect  freedom  of  the  servant  at  the  close  of 
it  provided  for,  whether  Hebrew  or  heathen.  In  the  case  of 
both  there  was  the  greatest  care  in  law  to  prevent  the  possi- 
bility of  any  limited  contract  of  service,  however  long,  pass- 
ing into  a  claim  of  property  in  person.  All  contracts  must  be 
fulfilled,  both  of  men-servants  and  maid-servants.  A  Hebrew 
master  might  have  a  household  of  both,  and  if  a  man-servant 
should  marry  a  maid-servant,  and  wish  to  leave  the  master's 
service  before  his  wife's  contract  with  the  master  had  expired, 
he  would  have  no  right  to  take  her  away  with  him,  though  she 
would  have  the  right  to  leave  as  soon  as  her  time  of  service 
also  was  up. 

But  suppose  the  man-servant  in  such  a  case  should  say  that 
he  desired  to  enter  into  a  new  and  longer  contract  with  his 
master,  so  that  he  and  his  wife  might  still  remain  in  his  serv- 
ice ;  he  was  at  liberty  to  do  this,  and  the  master  was  com- 
pelled to  consent,  but  the  new  contract  must  be  until  the 
jubilee,  however  distant  that  might  be;  and  it  might  be  ten, 
twenty,  thirty,  or  even  forty  years,  according  as  the  servant 
was  hired  at  the  beginning  or  towards  the  close  of  the  jubilee 
period.  A  wife  was  paid  for  in  those  days  just  as  Jacob  bought 
his  wife  of  Laban,  with  seven  years'  service,  and  Rachel  with 
seven  other  years.  But  yet  the  language  used  is  that  of  giving 
on  the  part  of  Laban,  not  selling.  "  I  will  give  her  to  thee. 
And  he  gave  him  Rachel."  Just  so  in  the  case  before  us  in 
Exodus,  the  statute  having  perhaps  been  formed  with  reference 
to  this  very  example.  "  If  his  master  have  given  him  a  wife, 
and  she  have  borne  him  sons  or  daughters,  the  wife  and  her 
children  shall  be  her  master's,  and  he  shall  go  out  by  himself." 
Exodus,  xxi.  4. 

But  who  does  not  see  that  if  we  were  restricted  to  these 
words ;  if  we  were  not  permitted  to  go  behind  them,  and  in- 
quire on  what  usages  they  are  founded,  and  what  mutual 
rights  and  relations  of  the  parties  they  explained  ;  if  we  were 


78  IDIOMS    OF    BUYING'  AND    SELLING. 

shut  up  to  these  words  alone,  as  to  a  legal  writ,  back  of  which 
we  could  not  inquire,  the  enactment  and  procedure  would 
look  very  arbitrary,  would  seem  cruel  and  oppressive,  if  we 
had  to  give  an  opinion  without  examination  of  the  other  side  ? 
If  a  slaveholder  could  take  this  passage  and  some  others,  and 
fling  them  in  our  faces,  restricting  us  from  inquiring  what  they 
mean,  what  witnesses  they  can  bring  as  to  their  meaning,  just 
as  he  can  prevent  his  slaves  from  testifying  against  any  cruel- 
ties, however  horrible,  of  white  men,  then  he  might  say,  as 
he  can  of  his  own  wicked  statutes,  these  are  my  justification 
for  holding  immortal  beings  as  property,  and  you  are  not  per- 
mitted to  go  behind  these  extracted  verses  to  learn  from  the 
context  what  they  really  mean,  or  to  gain  that  explanation 
which  the  word  of  God  itself  affords  in  regard  to  them. 

In  those  days  of  early  simplicity  and  nobleness,  a  man  seek- 
ing a  wife  was  not  hunting  for  a  fortune ;  he  sought  his  wife, 
if  he  followed  Jacob  and  Boaz's  example,  out  of  love;  he 
considered  his  wife  herself  as  his  fortune,  and  was  willing  to 
give  a  large  dowry  for  her,  instead  of  demanding  a  dowry 
with  her.  The  matches  in  the  Bible  are  love  matches,  and 
Jacob's  courtship  was  a  courtship  of  seven  years'  service  to  the 
father  of  the  damsel.  And  the  father  is  sometimes  described 
as  selling  his  daughter,  as  in  the  very  chapter  before  us,  when 
he  gave  her  in  betrothal  to  her  future  husband,  but  certainly 
without  the  most  distant  shadow  of  that  ignominious  meaning 
which  we  justly  attach  to  the  infamous  transaction,  not  un- 
common in  American  slavery,  of  a  man  selling  his  own  daugh- 
ter for  gain.  But  more  generally  the  father  is  described 
as  giving  his  daughter,  even  while  the  husband  is  described 
as  buying  her.  Just  so,  in  the  case  before  us  in  Exodus,  the 
statute  having  perhaps  been  framed  with  reference  to  the  very 
example  of  Laban  with  Jacob  and  Rachel.  And  the  moment 
we  find  that  the  dowry  a  man  was  expected  to  pay  for  a  wife 
amounted,  in  the  case  of  a  laborer  like  Jacob,  to  seven  years' 
steady  and  faithful  apprenticeship  and  service,  then  we  see 


,  IDIOMS    OF    BUYING    AND    SELLING.  79 

that  the  master  making  such  a  grant,  such  a  contract  of  mar- 
riage with  his  servant,  has  a  claim  for  the  payment  from  him. 
If  it  was  right  for  Laban,  it  was  right  for  any  master ;  if  it 
was  a  just  rule  for  Jacob,  it  was  just  for  any  servant. 

And  as  he  could  not  take  his  wife  and  children  away  without 
having  paid  the  just  dowry,  so  neither  would  the  law  allow  him 
to  take  the  children  from  their  mother,  but  they  must  remain 
with  her.  Under  these  circumstances  the  servant  might  at 
once  engage  with  his  master  for  the  long  term  of  service,  and 
the  covenant  had  to  be  ratified  before  judges  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  of  either 
party,  and  for  security  on  all  sides  against  oppression  and 
fraud.  The  service  money  in  these  contracts  would  seem, 
from  some  very  plain  indications,  to  have  been  paid  before- 
hand, or  a  great  part  of  it ;  and  hence  the  necessity  of  a  con- 
tract before  judges,  and  also  the  precaution  of  boring  the 
servant's  ear,  to  constitute  a  proof  positive  of  his  obligations, 
if  at  any  time  he  should  undertake  to  deny  them,  and  to 
cheat  his  master  out  of  the  service  he  still  owed  to  him.  But 
every  thing  was  voluntary  on  either  side. 

Now  the  contract  for  this  longest  period  of  service  ever 
allowed  is  expressly  described  as  a  contract  for  ever ;  he  shall 
serve  him  for  ever.  Yet  it  is  demonstrated  to  have  been  only 
till  the  jubilee ;  for  at  that  time,  in  the  great  recurring  fiftieth 
year,  by  the  central,  fundamental,  governing  law,  to  which  all 
contracts  of  business,  of  possessions,  and  of  service  were 
subordinate  and  amenable,  every  inhabitant  of  the  land  was 
free,  and  all  arrangements  of  hiring  and  paying  were  calculated 
with  reference  to  that  time  and  that  event,  when  every  pre- 
vious engagement  came  to  an  end.  The  conclusive  proof  of 
this  is  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  47-54  and  39-41 :  "  He  shall  serve 
thee  unto  the  year  of  jubilee,  and  then  shall  he  depart  from 
thee,  both  he  and  his  children  with  him."  The  term  for 
ever,  applied  to  domestic  service,  is  necessarily  restricted  in 
its  meaning ;  at  any  rate,  it  can  not  refer  to  eternity.  The 


80  IDIOMS    OP   BUYING   AND   SELLING. 

limits  of  the  restriction  have  therefore  to  be  sought  and  ex- 
plained from  known  circumstances.  Under  the  law  of  jubilee 
it  was  perfectly  plain,  and  could  not  be  extended.  It  could 
not  mean  perpetual  servitude,  nor  through  the  lifetime,  be- 
cause the  time  at  which  the  contract  was  made  might  have 
been  only  ten  years,  or  less  or  more,  before  the  recurrence 
of  the  jubilee,  and  then,  by  the  great  controlling  law,  men- 
servants,  maid-servants,  and  children  all  went  out  free. 

This  term  for  ever,  thus  applied  to  the  contract  with  Hebrew 
servants,  being  thus  indisputably  demonstrated  and  confessed 
to  mean  only  to  the  jubilee,  is  in  the  same  way  demonstrated 
to  mean  the  same  thing,  to  be  under  the  same  restriction,  when 
applied  to  the  contract  with  heathen  servants.  They  also 
might  in  like  manner  be  bound  by  the  for  ever  contract,  but, 
in  like  manner,  also,  and  by  the  same  limitations,  it  came  to 
its  close  for  them  at  the  jubilee.  They  too  might  be  engaged 
for  the  shorter  or  for  the  longer  period,  but  it  was  just  as  vol- 
untary with  them  as  with  the  Hebrews,  and  optional  to  make 
whichever  contract  the  law  allowed  ;  all  contracts  whatsoever 
coming  to  an  end  at  the  jubilee,  when  liberty  was  proclaimed 
to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  whether  Hebrew  or  heathen, 
natives  or  strangers.* 

*JOSEPHUS.   Antiq.,  B.  Ill,  ch.  xii.  was  thus  that  the  Jubilee,  as  the  year 

Josephus  intimates  no  restriction,  but  of  Redemption  and  of  Liberty,  univer- 

says,  in  the  most  general  terms,  ol  sal,  was  so  lively  a  type  of  the  coming 

6ov%evovTef   ehevfiepoi    dtyievrai,    the  of  Christ,  and  the  ransom  by  him  of 

servants  are  set  free.      Immediately  sinners    of   every  race.      See,    also, 

previous  he  has  said,  speaking  of  the  LIGHTFOOT.    "Works,   Vol.   V.,    136. 

freedom  of  the  fruits  of  the  earth  to  Lightfoot  quotes  Zohar  in  Lev.  xxv, 

all  in  common  in  the  seventh  and  fif-  "As  at  the  jubilee  ALL  SERVANTS  WENT 

tieth  years,  that  there  was  no  distinc-  FREE,  so  at  the  last  redemption,"  etc. 

tion  in  that  respect  between  their  own  Also,  Vol.  III.,  110,  111.     Compare 

countrymen  and  foreigners.      If   in  SAALSCHUTZ,  Laws  of  Moses,  Vol.  II., 

minor  things,  much  more  in  this  great  714.      Also,   KITTO'S    CYCLOP.,   Art. 

law  of  justice  and  benevolence,  would  Slave.    See,   also,  remarks   in  STIL- 

the  grand  principle  be  fulfilled,  Ye  LINGFLEET'S  Origines  Sacne,  VoL  I., 

shall  have  the  same  manner  of  law  ch.  vii. 
for  the  stranger  and  the  native.     It 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

FREEDOM  AND  BIGHTS  OP  THE  CHILDREN  OF  SERVANTS.  —  ESSENCE  OF  AMERICAN  SLAV- 
BRY.  —  PERVERSION  OF  THE  MARRIAGE  RELATION  INTO  A  SLAVE-BREEDING  FACTORY. 
—  IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  suca  A  MONSTROSITY  AND  ATROCITY  BEING  SANCTIONED  OF  GOD. 


now  we  have  a  fourth  point,  of  immense  importance  in 
this  investigation,  growing  directly  out  of  this  clause  before 
us  in  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  Exodus,  the  point,  namely, 
as  to  the  position  and  rights  of  the  children  of  servants  born 
in  the  households  of  their  masters.  Did  they  belong  to  the 
master,  or  to  their  own  parents  ?  The  bare  statement  of  the 
question  is  enough  to  settle  it,  but  we  patiently  pursue  the 
investigation.  From  the  length  of  the  contracts  with  servants, 
both  ordinary  and  extraordinary,  both  the  six  years'  contract 
and  that  up  to  the  jubilee,  it  follows,  necessarily,  that  there 
might  be,  must  be,  children  of  servants  born  in  the  house.  If 
these  had  belonged  to  the  master,  and  not  to  the  parents, 
then  the  ordinance  of  marriage  would  have  been,  as  to  serv- 
ants among  the  Hebrews,  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  slave- 
breeding  institution,  a  perpetual  manufacture  of  property  in 
human  flesh,  for  the  sole  profit  of  the  owner,  the  manufactory 
being  established  and  protected  by  the  same  divine  law  which 
said,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  and  the  stranger  as  thy- 
self." It  would  have  broken  up  and  destroyed  the  parental 
relation,  and  changed  the  children  of  the  servants  into  house- 
hold cattle  of  the  master,  owned  by  him,  and  owing  obedience 
to  him  only.  It  would  have  cut  off  one  whole  commandment 
in  the  decalogue  from  its  application  to  parents  and  children, 
"  Honor  thy  father  and  mother,"  and  transferred  the  author- 
ity and  claim  of  obedience  to  the  master  and  owner,  the  rela- 

4* 


82  EIGHTS    OF   CHILDREN". 

tion  between  father  and  mother  being  only  that  of  factors, 
that  of  agents  for  the  owner,  to  prepare,  stamp,  and  make 
over  into  his  possession,  for  his  riches,  new  articles  of  prop- 
erty belonging  to  him. 

If  any  one  can  believe  that  a  marriage  institution,  of  a  na- 
ture so  barbarous  and  diabolical  as  this,  was  set  up  by  the 
divine  law  among  the  Hebrews,  such  a  man  can  believe  in  any 
iniquity  as  divine.  And  to  this  extent  a  man  must  go  in  order 
to  find  any  sanction  of  the  system  of  American  slavery  in  the 
word  of  God.  For  the  essence  of  American  slavery,  the  cen- 
tral, fundamental  element  of  cruelty  and  crime,  by  which  it  is 
sustained  and  made  perpetual,  is  just  this,  namely,  the  inces- 
sant and  perpetual  stealing  of  children  from  their  parents,  by 
the  factorship  of  the  marriage  relation,  perverted,  corrupted, 
diabolized,  into  an  engine  of  anguish  and  debasement  to  the 
parents,  and  of  gain  to  the  masters,  that  hath  on  it,  more  than 
any  thing  else  in  this  world,  the  stamp  of  hell.  But  of  this 
indescribable  and  infinitely  atrocious  wickedness  there  can  not 
be  a  trace  discovered  in  the  Hebrew  laws  or  domestic  usages. 
The  children  of  servants  could  no  more  be  taken  for  property, 
or  converted  into  property,  or  claimed  by  the  master  as  be- 
longing to  him,  than  the  servants  themselves. 

It  would  be  infinitely  monstrous  to  suppose  that  whereas 
the  parents  were  free  to  hire  themselves  out  as  they  chose, 
and  could  not  be  challenged  as  owing  service  to  any  one 
longer  than  six  years,  or,  if  for  a  longer  period,  only  by  a 
definite,  voluntary  contract,  and  never  were,  nor  could  be 
slaves,  never  could  become  the  property  of  their  masters ; 
that  their  children,  by  the  accident  of  being  born  to  them 
while  they  were  engaged  in  his  service,  became,  not  their 
children,  but  his  property !  Where  are  the  articles  of  such 
villainy,  or  any  indications  of  them?  Where  did  ever  the 
parents  exist  on  earth  that  would  consent  to  it  ?  The  suppo- 
sition of  such  a  thing  among  Hebrew  parents,  such  an  admis- 
sion of  child-stealing  as  an  article  of  domestic  service,  would 


ATROCITY   OF   CHILD-STEALING.  83 

be  an  impious  buffoonery.  Such  a  thing  could  not  exist, 
such  an  operation  could  not  take  place,  but  by  divine  com- 
mand, and  upon  a  voluntary  contract.  Was  there  ever  such 
a  command,  or,  even  among  the  imported  forms  of  idolatry, 
was  there  ever  such  an  incarnation  of  Pandemonium,  bad 
enough  to  suggest,  or  fierce  enough  to  enforce  it?  Was 
there  ever  a  set  of  servants  so  servile  and  dehumanized  as  to 
obey  it  or  admit  it  ?  Did  they  ever  make  such  a  contract  ? 
Did  they  ever  agree  that,  though  the  master  had  no  power 
over  them,  no  claim  upon  them  as  property,  he  should  never- 
theless have  the  right  to  grasp  and  hold  as  his  property  the 
objects  of  their  affection,  the  children  given  to  them  of  God, 
and  dearer  to  them  than  themselves,  just  by  reason  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  born  in  his  household  ?  Could  a  more  incred- 
ible, impossible  monstrosity  of  oppression  and  of  cruelty  be  laid 
to  the  charge  of  a  divine  revelation  ?  Nothing  but  a  system 
which  is  "  the  sum  of  all  villainies"  could  ever  give  birth  to 
the  imagination  of  such  an  atrocity. 

Even  if  the  tenure  of  service  on  the  part  of  the  parents 
had  been  such  as  to  admit  some  idea  of  property  in  them- 
selves, bought  and  paid  for  by  the  master  as  their  owner, 
which  it  does  not,  still  there  could  be  no  claim,  except  by  a 
separate  agreement  and  purchase,  to  the  children ;  and  such 
agreement  there  never  was,  nor  ever  the  possibility  of  such 
purchase  provided  for.  Even  if  the  law  could  be  shown  to 
have  given  you  property  in  the  father,  it  gives  you  none  in  the 
child.  Not  one  step  can  you  go  in  this  wickedness  beyond 
the  bond.  If  the  law  could  allow  your  pound  of  flesh,  it  gives 
no  drop  of  blood ;  above  all,  it  does  not  allow  you  to  take  the 
heart's  blood  of  the  parent,  in  consigning  the  children,  from 
the  very  womb,  to  the  degradation  and  hopeless  misery  of  a 
breathing  and  sensitive  article  of  property  and  traffic.  For  the 
sanction  of  such  an  abomination,  you  have  got  to  show  a  law 
in  Hebrew  legislation  for  claiming  the  children  of  servants, 
without  right,  without  equivalent,  without  consent,  a  law  dem- 


84  BIGHTS   OF   CHILDREN. 

onstratlng  that  for  all  that  portion  of  the  human  family  who 
work  for  wages,  children  are  not  a  heritage  from  the  Lord, 
but  an  heir-loom  for  the  owner's  avarice  and  cruelty.  Such 
a  law  you  can  show  in  American  slavery,  and  it  brands  the 
page  where  it  is  recorded,  and  the  whole  legislation  that  ad- 
mits and  sustains  it,  to  everlasting  execration,  as  the  climax 
of  iniquity  and  cruelty.  But  you  can  not,  dare  not,  claim 
that  as  an  essential  element  of  Christianity;  yet  you  must, 
in  order  to  find  the  least  sanction  of  American  slavery  in 
God's  word,  produce  in  that  word  the  exact  model  of  that 
devilish  law. 

There  is,  certainly,  no  natural  right  to  enslave.  It  must  be 
the  creation  of  law,  and  of  law  framed  on  purpose  for  oppres- 
sion, on  purpose  to  establish,  as  legal,  that  which  is  naturally 
unjust.  It  were  blasphemy  to  suppose  this  done  by  Jehovah. 
But  assume,  if  you  please,  the  existence  in  Judea  of  servants 
bound  for  life,  bought  for  life.  Is  there  any  natural  claim  upon 
the  children  in  consequence  of  such  purchase  of  the  parents  ? 
Did  they,  when  they  sold  their  own  services,  stand  as  the  fed- 
eral head  of  a  race  consigned  by  that  purchase  as  the  property 
of  their  masters  for  ever  ?  Is  there  the  slightest  indication  of 
such  a  monstrosity  ?  Is  that  the  meaning  of  God's  embrace 
of  the  children  in  his  covenant  of  mercy  and  love  to  the 
fathers  ?  Was  that  the  meaning  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  when  he 
said,  Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid 
them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?  All  these 
enormities  are  essential  to  the  existence  of  slavery,  of  that 
American  slavery  which  claims  to  be  sanctioned  of  Jehovah 
in  his  word.  It  constitutes  and  perpetuates,  under  pretense 
of  divine  law,  nay,  and  of  divine  benevolence,  such  an  accursed 
race,  a  race  given  over  as  the  property  of  another  race,  with- 
out equivalent,  without  purchase,  without  payment. 

The  examination  of  the  point  before  us  is  as  an  observa- 
tion by  the  quadrant  at  sea,  whereby  we  bring  down  the  sun 
to  demonstrate  our  exact  position  in  relation  to  this  sin ;  we 


KIG1ITS    OF   MARRIAGE. 


85 


learn  the  position  of  this  sin  in  morals,  and  the  depth  and  ad- 
vancement of  our  depravity  if  we  maintain  it.  We  guage 
the  guilt  both  toward  God  and  man  by  this  test,  and  show  the 
impossibility  of  there  ever  having  been  the  least  sanction  of 
it  on  the  pages  of  a  divine  revelation.  The  institution  of 
marriage  was  for  all  mankind,  and  not  for  certain  aristocratic 
or  governing  classes  merely.  The  unity  of  the  family  circle, 
with  its  privileges  of  sanctity,  freedom  and  independence  that 
could  not  be  invaded,  was  not  for  the  wealthy  merely,  while 
the  laborer,  the  servant,  was  to  be  excluded  from  it,  and  put 
under  the  law  of  the  contubernium  for  the  master's  profit  ;* 
under  the  operation,  in  a  slave-breeding  manufactory,  of  a 
promiscuous  concubinage  so  diabolical,  that  that  worse  than 
heathen  monstrosity,  set  apart  of  God  with  a  special  seal  of 
wrath  branded  upon  it,  should  become  no  uncommon  reality, 
"That  a  man  and  his  father  should  go  in  unto  the  same 
maid."f 

The  institution  of  marriage,  so  adulterated,  in  combination 

*  Fuss,  Roman  Antiq.,  of  Slaves, 
sec.  51,  52,  54,  56.  The  frightful 
similarity  is  to  be  noted  between 
Roman  and  American  slavery — Ro- 
man under  the  system  of  Paganism, 
American  under  Christianity  —  and 
especially  the  oneness  and  monstros- 
ity of  both  in  the  same  Sodomic  li- 
centiousness and  adultery,  on  prin- 
ciple and  for  profit.  It  has  been 
gravely  decided  that  the  marriage 
contract  not  being  possible  in  law 
between  slaves,  the  crime  of  adultery 
is  done  away  among  them,  and  they 
having  no  marital  rights,  no  man  can 
be  punished  for  any  violation  of  them. 

f  Amos,  ii.  7.  The  startling  appa- 
rition of  the  grossest  and  most  horrid 
iniquities  engendered  from  the  ming- 
ling of  the  worship  of  Moloch  and  of 
God,  in  full  blossom  and  power  under 
the  light  of  the  gospel,  is  the  most 


remarkable  proof  of  the  efficacy  of 
the  system  of  American  slavery,  as  a 
hot-house  of  exotic  abominations  that 
could  have  been  reared  nowhere  else 
under  heaven,  under  no  climate,  in 
no  tropic  of  pure,  unadulterated  na- 
tive religion,  but  only  where  the  ca- 
pacities of  natural  depravity  were 
assisted  by  the  artificial  combinations 
of  a  gangrened  and  perverted  Chris- 
tianity, made  the  efficient  instrument 
of  deadliest  sin.  While  they  promise 
the  perfection  of  liberty,  the  sup- 
porters of  this  system  are  themselves 
the  servants  of  corruption,  speaking 
great  swelling  words  of  vanity,  out 
of  a  heart  exercised  with  cursed 
practices,  and  presenting  to  the  world 
an  amalgamation  of  the  gospel  in 
a  form  of  most  vaunted  orthodoxy 
with  the  most  wanton  antinomian- 
ism  under  heaven. 


86  EIGHTS    OF    CHILDREN. 

with  the  law  of  domestic  service,  must  have  constituted,  if 
that  service  was  the  system  of  slavery,  the  excommunication, 
to  the  latest  generation,  of  all  the  posterity  of  servants  from 
all  the  privileges  of  freedom,  and  the  creation  and  consecra- 
tion of  children  and  children's  children,  for  and  under  the 
curse  of  chattelistn,  to  be  cast  out  and  trodden  down  of  so- 
ciety with  a  ban  worse  than  any  ever  contrived  or  fastened  on 
mankind  by  the  Man  of  Sin  and  Son  of  Perdition.  Where  is 
the  covenant  of  such  an  abomination  ?  In  what  part  of  the 
charter  of  divine  mercy  for  mankind  does  it  lie  enshrined  or 
buried  ?  Under  what  literal  or  typical  swathing,  with  what 
winding  sheets  of  grave-clothes,  laid  away  for  the  millennium 
of  its  resurrection  ?  It  has  been  reserved  for  the  false  Mes- 
siahs of  a  modern  slaveholding  Christianity  to  stand  at  this 
sepulcher,  and  bid  this  festering  carcass  come  forth,  com- 
manding the  church  and  the  ministry  to  loose  him  and  let 
him  go.  And  this  is  the  missionary  Lazarus,  whom  the  mod- 
ern interpreters  of  divine  providence  are  to  charter  and  send 
out  as  the  great  power  of  God,  the  wonder-working,  mission- 
ary, providential  agency,  whereby  Ethiopia  shall  soon  stretch 
forth  her  hands  unto  heaven  ! 

The  entailment  of  slavery  among  the  Hebrews,  the  law  of 
its  hereditary  succession,  the  abrogation  of  marriage  by  it,  and 
the  substitution  of  a  system  of  concubinage  and  adultery  in- 
stead of  that  divine  ordinance,  would  have  changed  the  whole 
condition  and  history  of  the  nation.  If  the  children  of  serv- 
ants had  been  of  necessity  and  by  birth  slaves,  if  such  had 
been  the  law,  and  consequently  the  practice,  the  result  would 
have  been  inevitable,  a  slave  population  in  Judea  increasing 
more  rapidly  than  the  free  Hebrews  themselves.  But  for  a 
thousand  years  there  is  not  the  least  trace  of  such  a  popula- 
tion, or  law,  or  traffic ;  and  the  last  crime  that  filled  up  the 
measure  of  the  nation's  iniquities,  and  brought  down  upon 
them  the  wrath  of  God  without  remedy,  was  the  attempt  to 


GUILT   OF   CHILD-STEALING.  87 

set  aside  their  free  constitution,  which  made  such  a  slave  race 
impossible,  and  to  establish  slavery  in  its  stead. 

We  see,  very  plainly,  some  of  the  reasons  of  God's  extreme 
severity  in  punishment  of  that  last  mighty  crime.  The  moment 
that  free  constitution,  which  had  been  appointed  of  God,  was 
set  aside,  and  the  people  took  their  servants  and  said,  You 
shall  be  ours  at  our  pleasure,  our  property  for  ever,  it  made 
them  all,  at  one  blow,  men-stealers — a  nation  of  men-stealers. 
And  if  they  proceeded  to  take  the  children  also,  as  they  would 
have  done,  it  would  make  them  double  meu-stealers,  that  is, 
stealers  of  the  children  first  from  their  parents,  second  from 
themselves,  without  any  price  or  equivalent  paid  to  any  one. 
But  in  the  very  same  chapter  of  laws  in  which  God  had  re- 
stricted the  period  of  Hebrew  domestic  service  to  six  years, 
there  was  written  out  also  the  great  divine  law  against  man- 
stealing  and  selling :  "  He  that  stealeth  a  man,  and  selleth 
him,  or  if  he  be  found  in  his  hand,  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death."  Now  the  stealing  of  mere  property  was  never  pun- 
ished by  death  ;  and  if  men  had  been  considered  as  property, 
there  would  have  been  no  such  penalty  as  that  against  the 
stealing  of  men.  But  they  were  not ;  and  because  the  convert- 
ing of  them  into  property  was  a  perpetual  moral  assassination 
of  them  and  their  posterity,  destroying  the  children  through 
their  parents,  therefore,  not  only  the  act  of  stealing,  but  the 
claim  of  property  in  a  human  being,  the  holding  of  him  as 
property,  and  the  making  merchandise  of  him,  was,  in  the 
sight  of  God,  as  great  a  crime  as  killing  him ;  it  was  an  ini- 
quity set  in  the  same  category  for  its  punishment  as  murder. 

And  such  a  system  as  that  of  slavery  could  not  possibly 
have  been  established  without  this  crime  and  guilt  of  man- 
stealing  ;  for  even  supposing  any  persons  ever  to  have  been 
sold  as  slaves  for  crime  (of  which  there  never  was  an  instance, 
and  could  not  be),  the  law  strictly  defended  the  children  from 
being  affected  by  that  punishment.  The  children  could  never 
have  been  held  in  bondage  because  the  parents  were ;  there 


88  BIGHTS   OF   CHILDEElSr. 

was  no  attainder,  or  entailment  of  vengeance,  permitted.  "  The 
fathers  shall  not  be  put  to  death  for  the  children,  neither  shall 
the  children  be  put  to  death  for  the  fathers,  but  every  man 
for  his  own  sin."  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  16.  And  the  practical 
enforcement  of  this  law  we  may  find  in  2  Chronicles,  xxv.  4, 
where  Amaziah  punished  the  murderers  of  the  king,  his 
father,  "  but  slew  not  their  children,  but  did  as  it  is  written  in 
the  law  of  the  book  of  Moses,  where  the  Lord  commanded, 
saying,  "  The  fathers  shall  not  die  for  the  children,  nor  the 
children  for  the  fathers,  but  every  man  for  his  own  sin."  God 
also  says  in  Ezekiel,  in  reference  to  the  same  thing,  "  Behold, 
all  souls  are  mine  ;  as  the  soul  of  the  father,  so  also  the  soul 
of  the  son  is  mine."  Ezekiel,  xviii.,  4. 

There  was,  therefore,  no  possible  way  in  which  children 
could  be  enslaved  without  man-stealing ;  and  when  the  nation, 
in  the  last  stage  of  corruption  and  decay,  undertook  so  to 
change  their  constitution  and  laws,  as  that  servants  and  their 
children  should  be  the  property  of  their  masters,  they  became 
a  nation  of  man-stealers ;  and  for  that  crime  God  swept  them 
from  the  face  of  the  country.  This  same  iniquity  it  is,  which 
constitutes  the  great  guilt  of  our  own  nation,  and  makes 
American  slaveholders  a  people  of  men-stealers.  They  may 
aver  that  they  bought  the  parents  and  paid  for  them,  but  the 
children  they  have  stolen,  stolen  them  from  themselves,  from 
their  parents,  from  society,  from  God,  without  one  farthing 
ever  paid  for  them,  with  no  claim  upon  them,  save  only  the 
unrighteous  and  cruel  enslavement  of  their  parents  before 
them. 

Man-stealing  and  man-selling  are  the  sole  origin  especially 
of  American  slavery.  The  progenitors  of  the  human  beings 
now  bought  and  sold  as  chattels  in  this  country  were  stolen 
from  their  native  land,  and  they  who  first  bought  them  knew 
that  \hey  were  stolen.  And  their  paying  the  price  for  them 
to  the  slave  trader  could  not  and  did  not  take  away  from  the 
poor  stolen  creatures  their  own  right  of  ownership  in  them- 


GUILT   OF   CHILD-STEALING.  89 

selves,  but  they  remained  stolen  men  and  women,  just  as 
truly  after  being  bought  and  paid  for  as  before;  and  they 
who  bought  them  and  paid  for  them  and  claimed  them  as 
property,  knowing  them  to  have  been  stolen,  were  accessory 
to  the  crime,  just  as,  by  common  law,  the  receiver  of  stolen 
property  is  party  with  the  thief.  If  buying  and  paying,  with- 
out just  title,  constituted  lawful  property,  then  what  infinite 
villainies  would  be  hourly  committed  with  perfect  safety ! 
You,  A  B,  declaring  yourself  to  be  the  owner  of  any  piece 
of  property  in  the  city  or  the  country,  could  sell  it  to  C  D 
for  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  dollars,  could  sell  any  man's 
house  over  his  own  head,  and  the  payment  of  that  thousand 
dollars  would  make  that  buyer  the  owner,  though  you  had  no 
more  right  to  sell,  no  more  authority  on  the  premises,  than  the 
nakedest  beggar  in  Australia ! 

The  absurdity  is  palpable,  when  the  article  thus  bought  and 
sold  is  an  ordinary  item  of  estate  or  merchandise ;  but  the  moment 
the  subject  of  such  buying  and  selling  is  a  human  being  with  a 
dark  skin,  it  is  enough  for  the  buyer  to  aver  that  he  has  paid  for 
him.  In  the  case  of  ordinary  articles  of  traffic,  in  the  transfer 
of  property,  justice  watches  both  sides,  and  the  seller  must  es- 
tablish his  title  to  sell,  or  the  buyer's  having  paid  forty  thousand 
dollars  for  the  property  could  not  make  it  his.  In  the  case  of  a 
negro,  it  is  enough  for  any  white  man  to  swear  that  he  purchased 
him,  and  that  makes  the  purchased  black  man  a  slave  without 
remedy.  How  dreadful  is  this  guilt !  How  sinful  in  the  sight 
of  Heaven  such  perfect  disregard  and  annihilation  of  the  right 
of  each  human  being  to  the  ownership  of  himself !  The  trans- 
mission of  such  property  by  inheritance  is  merely  the  trans- 
mission of  a  crime ;  no  title  can  be  transmitted  where  none 
existed.  A  man's  slave  property  being  inherited  gives  him, 
no  title  as  heir,  since  it  was  stolen  at  the  outset,  and  all  the 
increase  by  natural  propagation  is  just  merely  the  increase  of 
the  theft,  the  race  on  his  hands  being  a  stolen  race.  It  is  im- 
possible, by  transmission,  to  convert  the  crime  into  an  inno- 


90  BIGHTS    OF   JUBILEE. 

cent  transaction.  No  man  can  innocently  buy  a  fellow-man  as 
property,  or  acquire  any  right  of  property  in  him,  though  he 
should  give  for  him  the  cost  of  the  whole  solar  system,  if  that 
could  be  weighed  in  God's  balances,  and  put  into  his  hands. 
The  essential  element  of  man-stealing  is  in  the  very  title  by 
which  you  claim  any  creature  of  those  human  beings  whom 
you  hold  as  property. 

It  is  this  perpetuating  of  injustice,  this  predestination  and 
legacy  of  it  as  an  inheritance,  which  the  heirs  of  the  estate 
plead  that  they  are  compelled  to  accept,  as  its  guardians,  that 
makes  the  system  infinitely  horrible  and  monstrous.  The  ele- 
ments of  evil  in  this  iniquity,  as  well  as  the  living  subjects  of 
oppression,  run  on  increasing  from  generation  to  generation. 
You  had  perhaps  two  slaves  bequeathed  to  you  ;  yourself 
create  five  others  and  bequeath  them.  If  you  merely  trans- 
mitted the  two  that  you  received,  the  system  would  be  com- 
paratively harmless ;  but  it  is  a  wickedness  redoubled  by  every 
successive  race  of  owners,  who  in  their  turn  not  only  receive 
the  stolen  goods  of  those  that  preceded  them,  but  themselves 
steal  a  new  community,  themselves  claim  a  new  and  separate 
circle  of  human  beings  as  their  property,  and  maintain  that  all 
this  is  by  the  sanction  of  God  Almighty. 

Now,  if  such  iniquity  as  this,  and  such  propagation  of  it, 
had  been  rendered  impossible  in  no  other  way,  it  would  have 
been  by  the  great  law  of  jubilee,  which  was  a  universal,  un- 
conditional emancipation  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land 
every  fifty  years,  making  it  absolutely  impossible  for  any 
man's  race  or  posterity  ever  to  be  enslaved.  And  that  was 
one  great  object  of  this  law,  while  at  the  same  time  it  pro- 
vided a  preparatory  discipline  of  heathen  servants,  to  fit  them 
also  for  the  perfect  freedom  of  the  Hebrews. 

It  took  them  from  the  influences  and  examples  of  heathen- 
ism, and  kept  them,  on  an  average,  twenty  or  twenty-five  years 
under  the  power  and  teachings  of  the  divine  law,  and  then 
they  were  free.  The  service  of  the  heathen  was  by  voluntary 


THE   JUBILEE   CONTRACT.  91 

contract,  and  not  an  involuntary  servitude ;  it  was  for  wages 
paid,  according  to  agreement,  and  made  no  approximation  to 
slavery ;  and  the  law  extending  the  term  of  contract  to  the 
jubilee  operated  as  a  naturalization  law  of  benevolent  proba- 
tionary freedom  for  those  who  had  perhaps  been  idolaters 
and  slaves.  They  were  put  under  such  a  system  as  made 
them  familiar  with  all  the  religious  privileges  and  observances 
which  God  had  ordered  and  bestowed;  a  system  that  admit- 
ted them  to  instruction  and  kindness,  and  prepared  them  to 
pass  into  integral  elements  of  the  nation.  But  all  engagements 
were  voluntary.  No  Hebrew  could  compel  any  heathen  to 
serve  him ;  no  Hebrew  could  buy  any  heathen  servant  of  a 
third  party  as  an  article  of  property.  No  such  buying  or  sell- 
ing was  ever  permitted,  but  every  contract  was  to  be  made 
with  the  servant  himself.  The  forty-fourth  verse  of  the  twenty- 
fifth  chapter  of  Leviticus  proves  this.  "  Both  thy  men-servants 
and  thy  maid-servants,  which  shall  be  to  you  of  the  heathen 
that  are  round  about  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy  the  man-serv- 
ant and  the  maid-servant."  And  the  forty-fifth  verse  contin- 
ues, "  Moreover,  of  the  children  of  the  strangers  that  do  so- 
journ among  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy,  and  of  their  families 
that  are  with  you,  which  they  begat  in  your  land  ;  and  they 
shall  be  to  you  for  a  possession."  Of  the  children  of  the  stran- 
gers shall  ye  buy;  that  is,  ye  shall  take  the  children  them- 
selves, as  many  as  are  willing  to  enter  your  service  on  this 
contract,  not  from  a  third  party,  but  from  themselves,  by  their 
own  free  choice,  and  from  their  families  begotten  among  you ; 
and  those  so  taken,  so  engaged,  shall,  as  to  their  time  and  serv- 
ice for  the  period  for  which  they  engage  themselves,  belong  to 
you,  be  to  you  for  a  possession,  a  fixture  of  service,  up  to  the 
period  of  jubilee.  "Ye  shall  take  them  as  an  inheritance  for 
your  children  after  you  to  inherit  a  possession ;  ye  shall  serve 
yourselves  with  them  for  ever." 

This  language  is  the  same  with  that  used  before  concerning 
the  Hebrew  servant,  under  the  same  long  contract  till  the  jubi- 


92  TERMS   OF  THE   CONTRACT. 

lee,  and  what  it  means  in  the  one  case,  precisely  the  same  it 
means  in  the  other ;  that  is,  they  shall  be  your  servants  for 
the  longest  period  admitted  by  your  laws  for  any  service  or 
any  contract,  even  till  the  jubilee.  And  as  engaged  by  such 
contract,  and  paid  on  such  terms,  ye  do  take  them,  and  may 
take  them,  as  an  inheritance  for  your  children  after  you,  for 
any  part  of  the  term  of  such  service  which  may  remain  un- 
expired,  when  you,  the  head  of  the  family,  are  taken  away. 
Then  those  servants,  by  you  engaged  and  paid  for  an  appren- 
ticeship till  the  jubilee,  shall  be  for  your  children  to  inherit  as 
a  possession,  the  possession  of  their  time  and  service,  which, 
by  your  contract  with  them,  as  rightfully  belongs  to  your  chil- 
dren as  to  you,  until  the  stipulated  period  come  to  an  end. 

Hebrew  servants  thus  engaged  themselves,  or  sold  them- 
selves to  families  of  strangers,  and  it  was  called  selling  them- 
selves to  the  stock  of  the  stranger's  family  •  that  is,  selling 
themselves  for  a  possession  to  the  children  of  the  family,  until 
the  jubilee  ;  thus  constituting  a  fixture,  a  possession,  as  to  time 
and  service  that  had  been  engaged  and  paid  for,  in  the  family 
stock.  This  was  done  by  Hebrews  themselves,  who,  neverthe- 
less, were  perfectly  free,  and  in  no  sense  slaves ;  it  was  done 
in  exactly  the  same  way  by  the  heathen,  on  a  contract  exactly 
as  free,  and  they  were  nevertheless  in  no  sense  slaves.  But 
this  jubilee  contract,  once  entered  into,  was  a  contract  belong- 
ing to  the  family ;  it  was  a  contract  by  which  the  servant's 
time  and  labor  having  been  purchased,  if  ten,  or  forty  years,  was 
due  to  the  family  for  that  period.  It  had  been  purchased  by 
the  master  for  himself  and  his  household,  his  children ;  and 
the  servant  so  apprenticed  would  belong,  that  is,  his  time  and 
service  would  belong,  to  the  family,  to  the  children,  if  the 
master  died  before  the  time  of  the  contract  expired.  If,  for 
example,  the  master  entered  into  such  a  contract  the  seventh 
year  after  the  jubilee,  it  would  be  a  contract  for  forty-three 
years  to  come.  Now,  suppose  the  master  to  die  ten  years 
from  that  time,  then  manifestly  the  time  and  service  of  the 


DURATION    OF    CONTRACTS.  93 

Hebrew  servant  would  belong  to  the  family  as  their  inher- 
itance; it  would  belong  to  the  children  as  their  possession, 
after  their  father ;  and,  again,  if  they  all  died  within  the  next 
ten  or  twenty  years,  and  the  servant  lived,  then  ten  or  twenty 
years  of  the  unexpired  service  would  still  belong  to  the  grand- 
children, as  their  possession;  and  so  on  till  the  jubilee.  It 
would  be  an  inheritance  for  the  master,  and  his  children,  after 
him,  to  inherit  a  possession ;  inasmuch  as  his  death,  ten  years 
after  a  contract  made  and  paid  with  a  servant  for  forty  years, 
did  not  and  could  not  release  that  servant  from  his  obligation 
to  complete  the  service  for  which  he  had  been  paid  before- 
hand. 

Meantime,  the  servant  could,  on  his  own  score,  trade  with 
the  money  which  he  had  thus  received,  could  turn  it  to  the 
most  remunerative  account  possible ;  for  he  was  not  owned 
by  his  master ;  and  if  any  inhuman,  oppressive  claim  were 
set  up  over  him  as  property,  he  could  flee  away  from  such 
tyranny,  and  every  man  was  bound  to  shelter  and  protect 
him ;  no  man  was  permitted  to  return  him  to  his  master. 
He  was  protected  by  other  definite  provisions,  likewise,  from 
the  cruelty  of  a  bad  master ;  of  which  provisions  the  enact- 
ment in  Exodus,  xxi.  27,  is  an  example :  "  If  he  smite  out  his 
man-servant's  tooth,  or  his  maid-servant's  tooth,  he  shall  let 
him  go  free  for  his  tooth's  sake."  We  shall  proceed  to  develop 
the  peculiarities  of  freedom  and  benevolence  in  these  remark- 
able laws,  and  demonstrate  their  operation.* 

*  See  SAALSCHUTZ,  Laws  of  Moses,  GRANVILLE  SHARPE,  Law  of  Retribu- 

on  the  provisions  by  which  the  sor-  tion  against  Tyrants,  Slaveholders,  and 

vant  could  trade  on  his  own  account,  Oppressors.      Compare,    also,    Judge 

and  on  the  nature  of  the  service  ren-  JAY  on  Hebrew  Servitude,  one  of  the 

dered  by  Jacob    to   Laban.      Also,  best  productions  of  that  eminent  phi 

KITTO'S  CYCLOP.,  article  Slave.      See,  lanthropist.    Compare,  also,  STILLING 

also,  BARNES  on  the  privileges  of  He-  FLEET,  Origines  Sacrae,  Vol.  I.,  ch.  vii. 

brew  servants.      Inquiry  into  Scrip,  remarks  on  the  duration  of  the  Jubilee 

Views  of  Slavery,  ch.  v.     Compare  Contract. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

GOD'S  FUGITIVE  LAW  FOR  PROTECTION  OF  THE  KUNAWAY. — COMPARISON  OF  IT  WITH 
LAWS  FOB  THE  RESTORATION  OF  PROPERTY. — DEMONSTRATION  FROM  IT  OF  THE  IM- 
POSSIBILITY OF  PROPERTY  IN  MAN. — THE  GUILT  OF  SUCH  A  CLAIM. — SLAVEHOLD- 
INO  PUNISHED  WITH  DEATH.  - 

"  THOTJ  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his  master  the  servant  which 
is  escaped  from  his  master  unto  thee.  He  shall  dwell  with 
thee,  even  among  you,  in  that  place  which  he  shall  choose,  in 
one  of  thy  gates,  where  it  liketh  him  best.  Thou  shalt  not 
oppress  him."  Deuteronomy,  xxiii.  15,  16.  This  is  part  of 
God's  personal  liberty  bill  for  a  free  people,  who,  if  they  would 
preserve  their  own  freedom,  must  respect  that  of  others,  must 
protect  the  liberties  of  all,  without  respect  of  person.  The 
benevolence  and  generosity  of  the  Mosaic  legislation  against 
slavery,  with  the  running  fiery  commentary  of  the  prophets, 
denouncing  this  and  every  form  of  oppression,  will  for  ever 
remain  among  the  most  convincing  proofs  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion. A  rainbow  over  the  gates  of  Paradise,  a  cataract  of 
liquid  ruby  or  diamond  bursting  into  spray,  with  the  sun  shin- 
ing on  it,  a  dome  of  the  celestial  city,  with  a  phalanx  of  angels 
floating  around  it,  would  not  be  more  beautiful,  more  won- 
derful, than  these  verses,  in  contrast  with  the  slave  legislation 
of  the  world.  This  divine  fugitive  law  is  a  suitable  companion 
for  the  law  against  man-stealing,  completing  the  demonstration 
against  the  possibility  of  property  in  man. 

It  proves  that  in  the  divine  estimation,  no  man  could  own 
another  man  in  such  a  sense,  as  to  have  any  claim  upon  him 
against  his  own  will,  without  his  own  consent,  in  a  contract  of 
voluntary  service;  no  man  could  own  another  man  as  property ; 
and  if  he  set  up  such  a  claim,  the  poor  oppressed  creature  so 


GOD'S    PERSONAL    LIBERTY    BILL.  95 

claimed  had  the  right  to  run  away,  the  right  to  take  possession 
of  himself  as  his  own,  no  matter  how  much  his  alleged  owner 
might  have  paid  for  him.  He  had  the  right  to  run  away,  and 
every  righteous  man  was  bound  to  help  him  run  away,  and  to 
give  him  shelter  and  protection.  His  master  could  not  right- 
eously demand  him,  for  he  could  not  and  did  not  own  him,  could 
not  righteously  have  bought  and  held  him  as  property.  The 
bargain  of  purchase  and  sale,  by  which  he  pretended  to  have 
acquired  possession  of  him,  was  not  only  null  and  void,  but 
was  a  theft,  a  robbery,  an  act  of  man-stealing.  And  so,  instead 
of  returning  the  fugitive,  it  would  be  incumbent  on  the  law  to 
seize  the  master  making  such  a  demand  as  his  professed  owner, 
and  to  indict  and  punish  him  for  that  crime.  But  the  fugitive 
could  never  be  treated  as  a  slave  ;  the  whole  nation,  and  every 
individual  in  it,  were  bound  and  compelled  to  regard  and  pro- 
tect him  as  a  freeman.  He  could  never  have  been  justly 
bought  or  sold  as  property,  and  the  claim  in  him  as  such  was 
forbidden  on  pain  of  death. 

If  he  could  have  been  justly,  at  any  time,  bought  as  prop- 
erty, then  he  would  have  been  justly  owned,  he  would  have 
been  the  buyer's  property ;  and  if  he  had  fled  away,  would 
have  been  himself  the  thief,  and  by  the  law  of  God,  every 
Hebrew  would  have  been  bound  to  aid  in  capturing  and  re- 
storing him  to  his  owner.  For  it  was  expressly  provided  that 
all  manner  of  lost  or  stolen  property  should  be  restored  to  the 
owner ;  and  the  Hebrew  code  had  a  specific  closeness  of  detail 
and  pertinacity  of  justice  in  this  respect,  that  never  marked 
the  jurisprudence  of  any  other  people.  If  any  man's  ox,  or 
ass,  or  sheep  strayed  from  him,  and  any  man  found  it,  he  was 
bound  not  only  to  advertise  the  owner,  but  even  if  he  were 
his  enemy,  to  bring  it  back  to  him  again.  If  the  owner  was 
not  known,  or  lived  at  a  distance,  then  the  law  ran,  "  Thou 
shalt  bring  it  to  thine  own  house,  and  it  shall  be  with  thee 
until  thy  brother  seek  after  it,  and  thou  shalt  restore  it  to  him 
again.  In  like  manner  shalt  thou  do  with  his  ass,  and  so  shalt 


96  EIGHTS   OF  PROPERTY. 

thou  do  -with  his  raiment,  and  with  all  lost  things  of  thy 
brother's,  which  he  hath  lost  and  thou  hast  found,  shalt  thou 
do  likewise ;  thou  mayst  not  hide  thyself."* 

All  lost  things  thou  shalt  deliver  unto  the  owner.  Now  it 
is  clear  that  if  a  slave  were  a  thing,  or  if  there  had  been  such 
a  thing  as  a  slave  recognized  or  lawful,  such  a  possibility  as 
that  of  property  in  man,  there  would  have  been  no  withdraw- 
ing that  kind  of  thing,  that  kind  of  property,  from  under  the 
operation  of  these  laws.  The  obligation  of  restoring  all  lost 
things,  all  escaped,  or  runaway,  or  stolen  property,  must  have 
included  the  most  valuable  of  all  property ;  and  the  law  would 
inevitably  have  read,  Thou  shalt  especially  restoi*e  unto  his 
owner  his  lost  slave.  But  it  reads  the  reverse,  Thou  shalt  not 
deliver  unto  his  master  the  servant  which  is  escaped  from  his 
master  unto  thee.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable,  the  proof 
from  God  impregnable,  that  man  can  not  own  property  in 
man.  If  the  servant  could  have  been  property,  then  he  would 
have  been  the  most  valuable  of  all  property,  and  the  man  de- 
taining him  from  'his  owner  would  have  been  the  greatest  of 
ah1  thieves.  If  he  could  have  been  property,  as  an  ox  or  a 
sheep  is  property,  then  the  obligation  to  restore  him  to  his 
owner  would  have  been  by  as  much  greater  as  a  man  is  more 
valuable  than  a  sheep.  By  the  market  price,  on  the  compari- 
son of  lost  things,  according  to  the  southern  tariff,  there 
would  be  at  least  fifty  or  a  hundred  times  a  greater  obligation 
to  deliver  up  a  man  than  a  sheep.  The  thing,  therefore, 
is  unqualified  demonstration,  and  by  this  line  of  argument 
alone,  from  this  one  statute  only,  it  is  plain  that  there  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  property  in  man.  This  is  God's  judgment. 

But  God  has  made  the  case  still  stronger.  By  the  statute 
in  Exodus,  xxii.  1-4,  if  a  man  steal  an  ox  or  a  sheep,  and  kill  it 
or  sell  it,  he  shall  restore  five  oxen  for  an  ox,  and  four  sheep  for 
a  sheep.  But  if  the  theft  be  certainly  found  in  his  hand  alive, 
whether  ox,  ass,  or  sheep,  he  shall  restore  double.  Tta  thief 

*  Deuteronomy,  xxii.  1-3. 


EIGHTS    OF    MAN.  97 

of  mere  property  was  not  otherwise  punished  than  by  such 
fine,  but  never  with  death ;  but  he  must  make  restitution,  in 
some  cases  seven-fold.  Now,  according  to  this  measure,  if  a 
man  could  have  been  property,  like  an  ox,  if  there  had  been, 
or  could  be,  or  could  have  been,  under  God's  law  or  permis- 
sion, such  property  as  a  slave,  then  the  thief  stealing  a  man 
and  selling  him  as  a  slave,  or  helping  him  to  run  away,  would 
have  been  bound  to  restore  at  least  five  slaves  for  the  one  he 
stole  and  sold,  or  helped  to  escape ;  but  if  the  stolen  man 
were  found  in  his  hand,  then  he  would  have  to  restore  two 
slaves  for  one.  And  if  any  man,  considered  as  a  slave,  consid- 
ered as  property,  ran  away  from  his  owner,  and  were  caught, 
then,  having  been  himself  his  own  thief,  he  would  be  bound 
to  become  two  men  returning  ;  he  must  restore  two  slaves  in- 
stead of  one  to  his  master.  If  any  other  man  stole  him  and 
sold  him,  or  helped  him  to  run  away,  he  must  have  restored 
five  slaves  to  his  owner,  instead  of  the  one  he  had  helped  to 
escape.  Such  must  have  been  the  law,  if  a  man  could  have 
been  property,  if  property  in  man  had  been  admitted  or  pos- 
sible. 

Now  read  the  law  in  regard  to  stealing  a  man.     HE  THAT 

STEALETH  A  MAN,  AND  SELLETH  HIM,  OR  IF  HE  BE  FOUND  IN 
HIS  HAND,  HE  SHALL  SUEELY  BE  PUT  TO  DEATH.  As  a  man  Can 

not  possibly  be  property,  and  as  the  making  of  him  such  was 
an  injury  that  could  never  be  recompensed,  any  more  than 
the  injuiy  of  murder,  the  scale  of  retribution  instantly  ascends 
to  the  highest  penalty  possible  for  crime  on  earth,  and  he  that 
stole,  sold,  or  held  a  human  being  as  a  slave  was  inevitably  to 
be  put  to  death.  The  claim  of  property  in  man  was  such  a 
crime,  that  any  connivance  with  it  was  worthy  of  death  ;  and 
any  legal  toleration  or  establishment  of  its  possibility  would 
be  a  wrong  against  man  so  immeasurable,  and  a  sin  against 
God  so  infinite,  that  to  admit  it  even  by  implication  in  a  just 
code  was  impossible.  God  forbade  the  very  supposition  of 

property  in  man. 

5 


98  DEFINITION   OF   SLAVERY. 

Slavery  is  the  holding  and  treating  of  a  human  being  as 
property.  It  is  buying,  selling,  making  merchandise  of  him. 
The  making  merchandise  of  him  is  set  by  itself  as  the  same 
crime  with  the  stealing  of  him,  and  is  condemned  oi  God  to 
the  punishment  of  death.  The  holding  of  him  as  a  chattel,  a 
thing  of  merchandise,  is  in  like  manner  forbidden  on  pain  of 
death.  The  first  law  against  this  crime  ran  as  follows:  "He 
that  stealeth  a  man,  and  selleth  him,  or  if  he  be  found  in  his 
hand,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death."  A  man,  any  human 
being ;  the  statute  comprehended  both  Jew  and  Gentile.  The 
note  of  Grotius  on  this  text  shows  the  interpretation  given  to 
it  by  one  of  the  most  impartial  and  learned  jurists  in  the 
world,  and  one  of  the  most  careful  and  accurate  students  of 
the  Scriptures.  It  is  a  testimony  of  great  value,  as  being  the 
opinion  of  a  competent  judge,  without  bias,  without  prejudice, 
on  a  matter  not  then  in  controversy,  the  meaning  of  a  statute 
perfectly  explicit  in  its  terms,  and  the  extent  and  particularity 
of  its  application. 

This  emphatic  note  was  adopted  by  the  General  Assembly 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States,  in  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Larger  Catechism  appended  to  the  Confession  of 
Faith,  and  it  stood  there  for  a  number  of  years,  a  faithful  tes- 
timony from  the  word  of  God  against  the  iniquity  of  slave- 
holding.  The  note  of  the  Assembly  was  on  the  first  paragraph 
of  the  answer  to  the  question,  "What  are  the  sins  forbidden  in 
the  eighth  commandment?"  Answer,  "The  sins  forbidden  in 
the  eighth  commandment,  besides  the  neglect  of  the  duties 
req'uired,  are  theft,  robbery,  man-stealing,  and  receiving  any 
thing  that  is  stolen."  Note,  "  1  Timothy,  i.  10.  The  law  is 
made  for  whoremongers,  for  them  that  defile  themselves  with 
mankind,  for  MEN-STEALERS.  This  crime  among  the  Jews  ex- 
posed the  perpetrators  of  it  to  capital  punishment  (Exodus, 
xxi.  16),  and  the  Apostle  here  classes  them  with  sinners  of  the 
first  rank.  The  word  he  uses,  in  its  original  import,  compre- 
hends all  who  are  concerned  in  bringing  any  of  the  human 


DEFINITION"    OF    SLAVE-HOLDING.  99 

race  into  slavery,  or  in  detaining  them  in  it.  Hominum  fares, 
qui  servos  vel  liberos  abducunt,  retinent,  vendunt,  vel  emunt. 
Stealers  of  men  are  all  those  who  bring  off  slaves  or  freemen, 
and  keep,  sell,  or  buy  them."  "  To  steal  a  freeman,"  says  Gro- 
tius,  "  is  the  highest  kind  of  theft.  In  other  instances,  we 
only  steal  human  property,  but  when  we  steal  or  retain  men 
in  slavery,  we  seize  those  who,  in  common  with  ourselves,  are 
constituted,  by  the  original  grant,  lords  of  the  earth."  Gen., 
i.  28.  Vide  Pol.  Synopsin,  in  loc. 

This  direct  and  faithful  testimony  against  the  sin  of  slave- 
holding  stood  for  years  in  the  book  of  the  Presbyterian  Con- 
fession of  Faith.  Editions  of  it  were  published  and  freely 
circulated  at  the  South,*  where  the  testimony  could  not  be 
contradicted,  and  as  being  the  testimony  of  the  church,  in  her 
received  standards,  was  of  the  highest  authority  and  impor- 
tance, to  be  carefully  maintained  and  constantly  and  without 
hindrance  proclaimed.  It  was  worth  more  than  all  that  has 
since  been  put  in  its  place,  by  any  or  all  Assemblies  since  the 
year  when  it  was  expunged  from  the  volume.  For  expunged 
it  was,  and  that  too  at  a  time  when  its  voice  was  becoming 
more  and  more  powerful  and  necessary,  and  a  long  and  com- 
promising note  in  the  year  1818  was  set  in  its  place. 

The  first  law  against  man-stealing,  holding,  and  selling,  re- 
corded in  Exodus,  was  promulgated  of  God  in  the  year  B.  C. 
1491.  Forty  years  afterwards,  this  statute  appears  in  another 
form,  or  rather,  an  additional  statute  is  enacted,  not  taking  the 
place  of  the  other,  nor  in  any  way  abrogating  it,  or  restricting 
its  application,  but  particularizing  the  native  Hebrew,  the  Israel- 

*  The  edition  before  me  is  that  of  the  fied  and  adopted  by  the  Synod  of 

year  1801,  at  Wilmington  and  Balti-  New  York  and  Philadelphia^  held  at 

more.    The  title  page  is  as  follows:  Philadelphia  May  the  16th,  1788,  and 

"  The  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  continued  by  adjournments  until  the 

Church  in  the  United  States  of  Amer-  28th  of  the  same  month.     "VVilining- 

ica,    containing    the    Confession    of  ton :  Printed  and  sold  by  Bonsall  & 

Faith,  the   Catechisms,  the  Govern-  Niles;  also  sold  at  their  bookstore, 

ment  and  Discipline,  and  the  Direct-  No.   173    Market   street,   Baltimore, 

ory  for  the  Worship  of  God.     Rati-  1801." 


100  SLAVE-HOLDING   AS   MAN-STEALING. 

ite,  as  the  object  of  a  special  protection.  This  statute  (in  Deut., 
xxiv.  7)  runs  as  follows :  "  If  a  man  be  found  stealing  any  of  his 
brethren  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  maketh  merchandise  of 
him,  or  selleth  him,  then  that  thief  shall  die ;  and  thou  shalt 
put  away  evil  from  among  you." 

If  we  inquire  the  reason  for  the  repetition  of  the  old  statute 
against  man-stealing,  in  this  new  form,  we  shall  probably  find 
it  in  the  fact  of  the  tendency  of  the  appointed  system  of  do- 
mestic service  among  the  Hebrews,  as  an  apprenticeship,  ordi- 
narily of  six  years,  to  pass,  in  the  hands  of  a  cruel  householder, 
into  oppression ;  the  temptation  for  him  to  take  advantage  of 
the  power  given  him  by  this  contract,  to  hold  the  servant  for 
a  longer  period,  and  in  fact  attempt  to  enslave  him.  A  man 
might  possibly  endeavor  to  do  this  in  regard  to  a  Hebrew 
servant,  who  would  not  dare  attempt  it,  in  the  face  of  the  old 
law,  in  regard  to  any  heathen  freeman,  or  any  man,  the  stealing 
of  whom  required  the  commission  of  the  whole  crime,  without 
any  foundation  of  previous  legal  service  to  build  upon.  The 
making  merchandise  of  any  of  his  brethren  would  be  the 
changing  of  him  from  a  voluntary  servant  into  a  slave ;  it 
would  be  the  act  of  man-stealing,  if  he  held  him  as  a  servant 
against  his  will,  without  contract,  with  the  claim  of  property 
in  him,  and  the  claim  and  usurpation  of  the  right  of  disposing 
of  his  services,  or  of  his  person,  to  others  as  property.  Such 
a  transfer  of  him  would  be  a  crime  worthy  of  death  ;  and  any 
man  who  entered  into  the  conspiracy  against  him,  receiving 
him  as  property,  and  in  his  turn  maintaining  the  claim  of  prop- 
erty in  him,  and  treating  him  as  merchandise,  committed  the 
same  crime,  and  came  under  the  same  condemnation. 

Now  it  is  plain  that  this  crime,  if  the  fact  of  its  being  com- 
mitted at  second-hand  deprived  it  of  any  of  its  primeval  wick- 
edness, might  have  passed  in  Judea  into  a  domestic  institution, 
a  possession,  an  organized  sin,  with  connivance  and  protection 
of  the  law ;  just  as  it  has  done  in  our  own  land,  where  the 
very  same  iniquity,  forbidden  by  law  as  piracy,  in  the  primal 


SLAVE-SELLING  AS   MAN-STEALING.  101 

act,  in  the  first  taking  of  a  human  being  as  property  and  mak- 
ing merchandise  of  him,  is,  by  simple  transfer  through  other 
hands,  transfigured  from  crime  into  righteousness,  from  theft 
into  lawful  possession,  from  man-stealing  into  a  just  domestic 
right  and  honorable  mercantile  transaction  ;  is  established  and 
protected  by  law  as  an  institution,  is  defended  by  divines,  and 
received  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church  as  a  Christian  and 
missionary  sacrament ! 

God  would  not  suffer  such  horrible  perversion  of  justice, 
and  enshrinement  of  iniquity  as  righteousness,  among  his  an- 
cient people,  and  therefore  statute  after  statute  was  enacted  to 
render  it  impossible.  The  stealing,  the  selling,  the  making 
merchandise  in  any  way,  not  only  of  a  man,  a  heathen,  a 
stranger,  but  of  a  Hebrew,  though  he  were  a  servant,  or  of 
any  of  the  children  of  Israel,  under  whatever  pretense  of 
service  due,  was  forbidden  on  pain  of  death.  Whosoever 
was  found  detaining  or  claiming  any  human  being  for  such 
purpose,  or  conspiring  with  others  to  maintain  such  a  claim, 
was  found  guilty  of  stealing  a  man,  and  was  to  be  punished 
with  death  for  it.  There  is  doubtless,  in  the  particularity  of 
these-  statutes,  a  reference  to  the  crime  by  which  Joseph  was 
sold  to  the  Ishmaelites  by  his  brethren,  which  act  was,  in  both 
the  sellers  and  the  buyers,  the  act  of  man-stealing,  and  was  so 
described  by  the  record  in  Genesis.  Joseph  was  stolen  by  his 
brethren  in  being  sold  by  them ;  and  if  they  had  been  the 
buyers  instead  of  the  sellers,  if  they  had  bought  him  as  mer- 
chandise, instead  of  selling  him,  the  crime  would  have  been 
the  «ame ;  the  making  merchandise  of  a  human  person  being 
under  all  forms  and  circumstances,  no  matter  through  how 
many  transfers,  by  how  many  parties  soever,  the  crime  of 
man-stealing. 

Men -steal  ers,  in  the  words  of  the  original  note  in  the  Pres- 
byterian Catechism,  comprehended  all  who  were  concerned  in 
bringing  any  of  the  human  race  into  slavery,  OR  IN  DETAIN- 
ING THEM:  IN  IT.  Now  the  slaveholder,  the  holder  of  human 


102 


CONCLUSION    OF    THE    CRIME. 


beings  as  property  in  slavery,  is,  in  all  cases,  the  man  who  is 
concerned  and  employed  in  detaining  the  victims  of  this  op- 
pression in  it.  The  slaveholder  may  say  that  he  only  received 
the  stolen  property,  and  that  he  paid  for  it  in  receiving  it. 
But  one  of  the  sins  forbidden  in  the  eighth  commandment  is 
the  receiving  any  thing  that  is  stolen  ;  and  one  of  the  forms 
and  methods  of  this  sin,  to  be  punished  with  death  by  the  law 
of  God,  was  the  holding  of  any  human  being  in  slavery  as 
property ;  not  the  mere  stealing  of  him,  which  was  the  more 
palpable  form  of  the  crime,  but  also  THE  HOLDING  OF  HIM  IN 
SUCH  BONDAGE,  AS  PROPERTY,  (which  might  more  easily  have 
escaped  notice,)  WAS  THE  WHOLE  CRIME,  and  was  as  certainly 
to  be  punished  with  death  as  the  original  stealing.  This  dis- 
poses of  every  slaveholder  before  God,  and  sets  the  crime  of 
slaveholding  just  where  it  ought  to  be  set — under  the  gal- 
lows.* 


*  Compare  GRANVILLE  SIIARPE'S 
powerful  scriptural  presentation  of 
this  guilt,  in  his  Law  of  Retribution 
against  Tyrants,  Slaveholders,  and 
Oppressors ;  and  Aristotle's  definition 
of  a  slave,  KTt]fj.a  KCU  opyavov  rov 
deairoTov  £[i<j>vxov,  an  animated  tool 
and  piece  of  property  for  the  master's 
use;  with  the  slave  laws  by  which 
this  definition  is  carried  into  de- 
tail ;  and  the  fearful  severity  with 
which  in  all  ages  these  laws  have 
been  executed;  and  the  manner  in 
which  the  slaveholder  makes  merch- 
andise of  unborn  generations,  and 
brands  the  babes  of  his  slaves,  as  soon 
as  they  are  born,  with  the  Pagan's 
brand  for  an  immortal  being.  All 
things  taken  into  consideration,  no 


man  can  wonder  at  God's  awful  se- 
verity and  wrath  against  the  crimo 
of  making  merchandise  of  man,  which 
is  the  crime  of  slaveholding.  Com- 
pare GROTIUS  and  CLARKE  on  Ex. 
xxi.,  16,  and  1  Tim.  L,  10,  with  DY- 
MOND'S  Essays  on  Morality,  ch.  xviii. ; 
STEPHEN'S  Merciless  Laws  of  Slavery, 
and  WALLON,  Histoire  d'Esclavage, 
Vol.  II.,  ch.  v. ;  also  Fuss,  Rom. 
Antiq. ;  and  BECKER,  Manual,  Ac- 
count of  Rom.  Slavery  in  Bib.  Sac., 
1845.  Compare  BECKER'S  Chariclcs, 
Excurs.  slaves,  and  Gallus,  Excurs. 
slave  family;  also  JUDGE  JAY'S  Works, 
Reproof  of  the  Church,  and  Letter  to 
Ives ;  also  STROUD,  Slave  Laws ;  and 
GOODELL,  Am.  Slave  Laws,  Part  I. 


PART  II, 
DEMONSTRATION". 


FROM 


THE     HEBREW     ORIGINAL. 


INVESTIGATION 

OF     WORDS     AND     STATUTES 


CHAPTER    X. 

INJURIOUS  AND  TENACIOUS  MIXTURE  OF  ERROR  AND  TRUTH. — IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  WOBK 
OF  UNDER-DRAINING. — INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  WORDS  FOR  SERVANTS  AND  SERVICE. 
— FALSELY  TRANSLATED  TO  MEAN  BONDAGE  AND  SLAVE. 

THE  handling  of  the  word  of  God  deceitfully,  and  all  the 
miseries  and  mischiefs  consequent  thereupon,  may  begin  in  a 
very  small,  unnoticed  way.  It  is  insects,  with  their  microscopic 
eggs,  that  work  the  greatest  ruin  with  the  most  precious 
plants  and  flowers.  By  the  capture  of  single  words,  by  set- 
ting his  mark  upon  them,  perhaps  clipping  and  milling  them, 
and  then  setting  them  in  circulation  as  the  true  coin,  Satan 
has  gained  vast  possessions.  Perverted  phrases,  occupied 
with  false  interpretations,  become  the  strongest  citadels  of 
the  adversary  of  men's  souls.  We  have  adverted  to  some  re- 
markable instances  of  inveterate  and  obstinate  perversion  and 
mistake  ;  a  volume  might  be  occupied  in  tracing  their  origin 
and  progress. 

The  fruits  and  forms  of  religious  truth,  poisoned  by  such 
malignant  error  at  the  fountain,  have  become  like  gnarled 
apricots  and  apples,  stung  by  the  curculio  /  and  men  have  be- 
come so  habituated  to  the  poisoned  fruit,  and  the  fair,  sound, 
wholesome  plum  has  become  such  a  stranger,  that  at  length 
they  claim  the  knotted,  bitter  work  of  the  curculio  as  the  per- 
fect work  of  God,  and  the  attempt  to  excommunicate  it  from 
the  market,  and  introduce  the  true  fruit  in  its  stead,  is  de- 
nounced as  the  work  of  infidelity  and  fanaticism. 

Such  errors  acquire  a  singular  tenacity  by  time.  They  con- 
glomerate and  adhere,  till  all  the  neighboring  theology  is  like 
an  old  Roman  wall,  or  like  the  blrs  Nimroud,  with  the  bricks 


106  ERRORS    OF    PRECEDENT. 

so  fast  in  the  rocky  asphaltum,  that  no  power  can  separate 
them ;  the  whole  is  as  one  solid  rock,  through  the  tenacity  of 
the  mortar.  One  built  up  a  wall,  and  another  daubed  it  with 
untempered  mortar  ;  but  the  mortar  in  this  case  is  tempered 
with  vehement  passion  and  power,  and  the  most  diabolical 
wickedness  is  protected  by  it. 

It  is  a  work  of  great  difficulty  to  break  down  these  preju- 
dices. Precedents  of  mistake  and  wickedness,  instead  of  the 
divine  law,  are  made  to  constitute  the  highway  of  theology, 
the  great  military  road.  It  follows  some  tortuous  sheep-track, 
the  highway  of  God's  truth  having  been  deserted,  the  prece- 
dent having  been  set  by  some  bell-wether  of  the  flock  passing 
through  a  gap  in  the  wall,  and  imitated  by  others,  till  the  great 
route  of  theological  traffic  has  become  established  over  the 
breach  of  God's  own  commandments.  The  error  has  run  on, 
age  after  age  giving  it  sanction,  till  the  support  of  it  has  be- 
come a  mark  of  theological  conservatism ;  and  he  who  en- 
deavors to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  multitude,  and  direct  the 
stream  of  opinion  and  of  trade  into  the  good  old  paths  of 
God,  is  in  danger  of  being  himself  run  over  and  trampled  to 
death,  or  cut  down  as  a  heretic  and  fanatic,  or  treated  with  a 
commission  of  lunacy.  If  he  be  not,  of  a  truth,  an  angel, 
armed  with  the  sword  of  the  Spirit',  and  trusting  wholly  in 
God,  Balaam  on  his  ass  will  ride  over  him  for  an  interview 
and  compromise  with  Balak. 

A  few  vicious  precedents,  especially  if  of  high  authority, 
are  sufficient,  even  in  the  church  of  God,  to  overlay  or  shove 
aside  the  law,  till  they  are  at  length  adopted  as  the  law ;  pre- 
cisely according  to  the  example  of  usurpation  set  by  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  in  Moses'  seat,  thrusting  the  traditions 
of  the  elders  in  the  place  of  the  divine  statutes,  or  alongside 
with  them,  as  their  supreme  interpreters.  Error  is  thus  taught 
by  rote,  while  the  rule  of  God's  word  is  disregarded  or  per- 
verted. When  things  have  run  on  in  this  manner,  unchecked, 
unquestioned  for  a  while,  the  vital  elements  of  religion  suffer, 


NEED    OF    UNDER-DRAINING.  107 

and  a  poison  unsuspected  is  intruded  into  our  daily  food.  The 
whole  province  of  theology  is  in  danger  of  becoming  an  in- 
fected region,  as  a  fair  inviting  country,  beneath  whose  soil 
the  seeds  of  disease  lurk  for  activity. 

There  is  a  great  work  of  under-draining  needed,  for  we  are 
as  a  popple  who  have  built  upon  ground  infested  with  con- 
cealed fountains  of  marsh  malaria,  and  filled  in  for  the  pur- 
poses of  building,  with  soil  thrown  over  those  feverish  and 
pestilential  springs  ;  which,  being  thus  partially  restrained  and 
suffocated,  diffuse  their  noxious  effluvia  and  seminal  principles 
through  every  square  foot  of  soil,  into  every  cellar,  beneath 
every  basement.  There  is  no  possibility  of  outliving,  or  ignor- 
ing, or  defying  this  invisible  mischief.  There  can  be  no  remedy, 
no  security,  but  in  a  thorough  under-draining  of  our  ecclesias- 
tical and  theological  marshes  by  the  word  of  God.  The  fever 
and  ague  of  a  false  piety  is  in  every  shovel-full  of  soil  thrown 
up  out  of  such  stagnant  centuries  of  error ;  every  furrow  turned 
over  by  the  plow  of  such  theology  emits  a  vapor  that  smites 
the  very  husbandman  with  disease.  All  the  quinine  of  the 
Tract  volumes,  all  the  tonics  of  the  most  stringent  Calvinism, 
can  not  keep  out  the  sickness  from  the  system,  while  its  ele- 
mentary principles  are  diffused  as  health.  The  whole  piety 
that  builds  over  such  foundations  will  be  the  condemned  vic- 
tim of  the  shakes,  a  fitful,  unreliable,  antinomian  religion,  now 
burning,  now  freezing ;  furious  and  proud  in  the  extremes  of 
a  boasted  orthodoxy,  and  confident  at  the  same  time  in  the  in- 
dulgence and  defense  of  the  worst  licentiousness.  God  must 
overturn  and  overturn  and  overturn,  working  according  to 
Hebrews,  xii.  27,  and  removing  the  things  that  are  or  can  be 
shaken,  till  the  principle  of  fever  and  ague  is  banished,  and 
that  alone  which  can  not  be  shaken  remains.  In  this  work  of 
sacred  radicalism,  there  is  the  divine  assurance  of  receiving  a 
kingdom  which  can  not  be  moved. 

Our  survey  thus  far  has  been  general  and  introductory. 
We  now  proceed  to  a  careful  investigation  of  the  words,  or 


108  ORIGINAL    FOR    SERVANT. 

periphrastic  expressions,  employed  in  the  original  Hebrew  for 
servants  and  bond-servants,  servitude  and  bondage.  Not  a  little 
is  depending  on  their  history  and  usage,  and  we  have  already 
noted  the  remarkable  fact,  that  there  is,  in  reality,  no  word 
for  slave,  or  bondman,  in  the  Hebrew  tongue;  there  is  no 
Hebrew  word,  into  which  these  English  terms,  with  our  ideas 
attached  to  them,  could  properly  be  translated,  or  by  which 
they  could  be  conveyed.  The  Roman,  Greek,  or  modern  defi- 
nition of  the  word  slavery  can  not,  with  the  least  propriety  or 
truth,  be  assumed  as  the  meaning  of  the  word  used  for  serv- 
ant or  bond-servant  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  This  is  a  most 
important  fundamental  consideration. 

ORIGINAL    WORD    FOR    SERVANT. 

The  ordinary  word  for  servant  is  n?#,  evedh.  The  verb  izy, 
avadh,  to  labor,  constitutes  the  root.  The  primary  signification 
of  the  verb  has  nothing  to  do  with  that  afterwards  attached  to 
the  noun,  but  is  independent,  separate,  generic.  It  is  an  honor- 
able meaning  ;  for  labor  is  the  vocation  of  freemen,  or  was  so 
before  the  fall,  when  the  father  of  mankind  was  put  into  the 
garden  of  Eden  to  dress  it  and  to  keep  it,  and  to  till  the 
ground  ;  to  work  upon  the  ground,  to  cultivate  it.  The  first 
instance  of  the  use  of  the  verb  is  in  Genesis,  ii.  5 :  There  was 
not  a  man  to  till  the  ground,  •ia?£,  laavodh,  to  labor  upon  it, 
to  cultivate  it. 

So  in  Genesis,  iii.  23 :  The  Lord  God  sent  him  forth  from 
the  garden  of  Eden,  to  till  the  ground,  from  whence  he  was 
taken ;  na?V,  laavodh,  to  work  upon  it. 

So  in  Genesis,  iv.  2 :  Cain  was  a  tiller  of  the  ground,  nay, 
ovedh,  a  man  working  the  ground ;  that  was  his  occupation. 

Also,  Genesis,  iv.  12 :  in  the  sentence  of  Cain,  the  same  word 
is  made  use  of,  the  verb  in  the  second  person ;  when  thou  fittest 
the  around,  ^n»ri  taavodh. 

The  generic  signification  of  the  word,  and  the  only  significa- 
tion possible  in  primeval  society,  is  that  of  labor,  work,  personal 


SEEVANT  AND  SERVICE.  109 

occupation.  The  same  universal  meaning  is  in  the  command- 
ment, Six  days  'shalt  thou  labor,  -layp,  taavodh.  Exodus,  xx.  9. 

In  process  of  time  comes  the  secondary  meaning,  with  the 
idea  included  of  laboring  for  another;  that  additional  idea 
constitutes,  indeed,  the  secondary  meaning.  At  first  it  is  only 
the  idea  of  working  for  another  willingly,  or  for  a  considera- 
tion, for  wages;  as  might  be  done  by  brothers  and  sisters,  or 
other  blood  relatives  in  the  same  family.  See  Malachi,  iii.  17: 
As  a  man  spareth  his  own  son  that  scrveth  him,  ta'yn,  haovedh. 
There  is  yet  no  signification  of  subjection  or  of  servitude.  In 
Genesis,  xxix.  15,  it  is  used  concerning  the  service  of  Jacob 
to  Laban  :  Shouldst  thou  serve  me  for  nought  ?  Tell  me  what 
shall  thy  wages  be  ?  isrnaan,  a  voluntary  service.  And  Jacob 
served,  etc.,  "o»»5,  vayavodh,  xxix.  20.  For  the  service  which 
thou  shalt  serve,  xxix.  27,  iasp  I»N  rnaj'si. 

Next  comes  the  added  significance  of  subjection,  first,  polit- 
ically, the  subjection  of  tributary  communities  under  one  lord, 
as  in  Genesis,  xiv.  4  :  Twelve  years  they  served  Chedorlaomer, 
•wrb^'vjs  hN  !I"T:???  avdhu.  So  in  Deuteronomy,  xx.  11  :  All  the 
people  shall  be  tributaries  unto  thee,  and  they  shall  serve  thee, 
^•«5?.3,  vaavadhu.  So  in  Genesis,  xxv.  23,  of  the  subjection 
of  Esau  to  Jacob  :  The  elder  shall  serve  the  younger,  -ay  ?, 
avodh.  Also,  Genesis,  xxvii.  40,  in  Isaac's  prediction  :  Thou 
shalt  serve  thy  brother,  lasn,  avodh.  Also  in  Jeremiah, 
xxv.  11  :  These  nations  shall  serve  the  king  of  Babylon, 
So  Genesis,  xxvii.  29  :  Let  people  serve  thee, 


Second,  both  politically  and  personally.  Genesis,  xv.  13, 
spoken  of  the  bondage  in  Egypt  :  Thy  seed  shall  serve  them, 
tanas,  avadhum.  Genesis,  xv.  14:  That  nation  whom  they 
shall  serve,  will  I  judge,  n'as^  I»N  •>'*«—  nx.  Also,  Exodus, 
i.  13  :  The  Egyptians  made  the  children  of  Israel  to  serve  with 
rigor,  !fla»»i,  avidhu.  Also,  Exodus,  xiv.  12  :  Let  us  alone,  that 
we  may  serve  the  Egyptians,  d^sw—  nx  nnas3\  Also,  Jeremiah, 
v.  19:  Ye  shall  serve  strangers  in  a  land  not  yours,  nay?., 


110         WOKDS  FOE  SERVANT  AND  SERVICE. 

taavdhu.  Also,  Jeremiah,  xvii.  4  :  I  will  cause  thee  to  serve 
thine  enemies,  tpn-asr;1]  ^a^x. 

Third,  spoken  of  personal  servitude.  Exodus,  xxi.  2,  con- 
cerning a  Hebrew  servant  :  Six  years  shall  he  serve  thee,  •ia*; 
b^sti  tip,  avodh.  Exodus,  xxi.  6  :  Shall  serve  him  for  ever, 
ti$y}>  'nasn,  avadhu.  Leviticus,  xxv.  39  :  Thou  shalt  not  compel 
him  to  serve  as  a  bond-servant,  ta.y  rnas  *ia  najm—  N'?.  Leviti- 
cus, xxv.  40  :  Shall  serve  thee,  unto  the  year  of  jubilee,  na»  —  i?, 
yaavodh,  nay?  ^3'*?.  The  personal  servitude  embraces  the  idea 
of  laboring  for  another,  in  subjection  and  inferiority,  either  on 
contract  for  wages,  or  as  an  oppression  without  wages.  And 
thus  the  meaning  and  reality  of  the  verb  nay  passes  gradually 
from  voluntary  labor  for  oneself  into  service  performed  for  an- 
other, either  for  wages,  or  under  oppression. 

There  are  several  other  modes  of  usage  in  which  the  verb  is 
employed,  as,  first  and  most  commonly,  of  the  service  of  God. 
Deuteronomy,  vi.  13  :  Thou  shalt  fear  the  Lord  thy  God,  and 
serve  him,  "0*5,  taavodh.  Joshua,  xxii.  5  :  To  love  the  Lord 
your  God,  and  to  serve  him,  'na^  1  Samuel,  vii.  3  :  Prepare 
your  hearts  unto  the  Lord,  and  serve  him  only,  ^rnas1}.  Also, 
1  Samuel,  vii.  4  :  The  children  of  Israel  served  the  Lord  only, 
Psalm  Ixxii.  11  :  All  nations  shall  serve  him, 


Second,  of  the  service  of  idols.  Psalm  xcvii.  7  :  Con- 
founded be  all  they  that  serve  graven  images,  V>??5  "nab*—  Vs. 
Ezekiel,  xx.  39  :  Serve  ye  every  one  his  idols,  s'-ay,  avodhu. 
Deuteronomy,  xii.  2  :  The  nations  served  their  gods,  dtp—  snay. 
Deuteronomy,  xvii.  3,  and  Judges,  x.  13  :  Served  other  gods, 
f-hx  Dir^N  "iaysi.  2  Kings,  xxi.  3,  worshiped  all  the  host 
of  heaven,  and  served  them,  dnfc  i'a,y»;.  Jeremiah,  xxii.  9  : 
Worshiped  other  gods,  and  served  them,  Bna?»5,  avdhum. 

Third,  it  is  used  once  as  synonymous  with  ncy,  to  perform, 
in  the  sense  of  presenting  sacrifice  to  God  ;  doing  sacrifice,  as 
our  translation  has  it,  Isaiah,  xix.  21  :  The  Egyptians  shall  do 
sacrifice  and  oblation,  nhiisi  hat 


WORDS  FOR   SERVANT   AND   SERVICE.  Ill 

Fourth,  imposing  labor  on  others.  Exodus,  i.  15  :  All  their 
service  wherein  they  made  them  serve,  dna  ana»— IIBK  dtnas-Vs, 
service  served  upon  them.  Similar  is  Leviticus,  xxv.  46,  ren- 
dered unjustly  in  our  translation,  They  shall  be  your  bondmen 
for  ever,  snassn  dna,  taavodhu,  on  them  ye  shall  impose  service. 
So  Jeremiah,  xxii.  13  :  With  his  neighbor's  service  without 
wages,  dah  -as?  tnrj^.a,  upon  his  neighbor  imposeth  work  for 
nothing.  Jeremiah,  xxv.  14:  Greek  kings  shall  serve  themselves 
of  them,  da-nas,  avdhu.  Jeremiah,  xxx.  8  :  Strangers  shall  no 
more  serve  themselves  of  him,  that  is,  of  Israel,  d">"Vr  -\\y 
'a—  5ia?'~ xV%  yaavdhu ;  shall  no  more  impose  servile  labor 
on  him,  shall  no  more  play  the  bond-master  with  him.  This  is 
as  far  as  the  verb  ever  goes  toward  the  signification  to  enslave, 
an  expression  for  which  there  is  no  equivalent  in  Hebrew, 
though  the  verb  isto,  to  sell,  is  used  for  the  transaction,  as  in 
the  enslaving  of  Joseph,  when  his  brethren  sold  him  to  the 
Ishmaelites. 

Now  \ipou  the  verbal  na»,  evedh,  which  is  the  word  all  but 
universally  employed  in  Hebrew  for  servant,  it  is  the  second- 
ary meaning,  and  not  the  primary,  that  has  descended  from  the 
verb  -ias,  avadh.  The  noun  nas>,  evedh,  never  means  a  la- 
borer, a  worker,  in  the  generic  sense,  as  Adam  and  Noah 
were  laborers,  but  always  a  worker  with  reference  to  the  will 
of  another,  a  worker  in  subjection,  either  on  contract  by  hire, 
or  by  compulsion.  In  Ecclesiastes,  v.  12,  it  is  said,  Sweet  is 
the  sleep  of  a  laboring  man  ;  but  there  the  verb  is  used,  and 
not  the  noun ;  "ia>rj,  haovedh,  him  that  worketh,  or  him  work- 
ing, the  working  man.  The  noun  na^  means,  indeed,  a  work- 
ing man,  but  always  under  direction  of  another,  or  in  subjec- 
tion as  a  servant,  a  serving  man.  This  is  the  generic  meaning 
of  the  noun  ;  not  labor,  but  labor  as  service. 

In  Deuteronomy,  xxvi.  6,  7,  we  have  examples  of  several 
words  used  for  labor  in  the  same  connection,  that  is,  the  con- 
dition of  Israel  in  bondage :  The  Egyptians  laid  upon  us  hard 
bondage,  n»pT  ?nas,  hard  labor.  And  the  Lord  looked  on  our 


112  WORDS   FOB   SERVANT  AND   SERVICE. 


labor  and  our  oppression,  wshV—  nx^  ^tt?.  V«j>  is  the  verb 
frequently  used  for  laboring  to  weariness,  and  V«»,  the  verbal 
from  it,  for  wearisome  toil,  employed  frequently  in  Ecclesiastes, 
as  in  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  10,  11,  19-22,  both  the  verb  and  the 
noun,  both  concerning  labor  of  the  mind  and  the  body.  So 
Psalm  cxxvii.  1  :  They  labor  in  vain,  siVfc.s. 

In  Psalm  cxxviii.  2,  yet  another  word  for  labor,  which  is 
frequently  used,  »ij,  thou  shalt  eat  the  labor  of  thy  liana's, 
yw,  the  verbal,  used  also  in  Genesis,  xxxi.  42,  Haggai,  i.  11, 
Job,  x.  3  :  The  labor  of  the  hands.  But  none  of  these  words 
besides  rnh?  are  used  of  servile  labor  exclusively,  or  with  any 
definition  that  restricts  their  meaning,  and  decides  it  as  ap- 
plied to  service  for  another,  as  is  the  case  with  iss  and  rn'a?.» 
for  example,  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  i:w  fna?.,  rendered  in  our 
translation,  the  labor  of  a  bond-servant. 

Then,  secondarily,  -o?,  evedh,  is  applied  by  persons  of  noble 
station  and  life  in  speaking  of  themselves  to  other  noble  per- 
sonages, instead  of  using  the  personal  pronoun  me.  It  is  an 
oriental  peculiarity.  Genesis,  xxxiii.  5,  in  Jacob's  address  to 
his  brother  Esau  :  The  children  which  God  hath  graciously 
given  thy  servant,  ^.^y.  So  Genesis,  xlii.  13:  Thy  servants 
are  twelve  brethren,  tp~??.-  In  tne  same  manner,  speaking 
of  their  father  Jacob,  Genesis,  xliv.  27  :  Thy  servant  my 
father  said  unto  us,  ^-2?.  So  in  Isaiah,  xxxvi.  11,  the  style 
of  Eliakim,  Shebna  and  Joab  with  Rabshakeh,  Speak,  I  pray 
thee,  unto  thy  servants,  5p"ss>. 

This  is  the  style  of  deference,  politeness,  humility.  It  may 
be  the  formal  style  of  equals  toward  one  another  in  high  life, 
or  the  style  of  the  inferior  towards  the  superior.  The  effect 
is  an  elaborate  and  elegant  courtesy  toward  equals,  and  a  def- 
erential, respectful  homage  towards  superiors.  The  abrupt- 
ness of  an  immediate  address  is  prevented,  and  the  form  of 
language  seems  to  have  the  effect  of  employing  an  ambassador 
or  mediator  between  potentates.  That  which,  in  the  courtesy 
of  a  formal  politeness,  is  connected  by  us  with  the  signature 


ELEVATED   MEANING   OF   SERVANT.  113 

at  the  bottom  of  letters,  as,  your  obedient  and  humble  servant, 
or,  faithfully  and  truly  your  friend  and  servant,  the  men  of 
the  East  applied  in  daily  conversation.  See,  for  example,  Da- 
vid's interview  with  Saul,  1  Samuel,  xvii.  34  :  Thy  servant  kept 
his  father's  sheep,  etc.  Also,  David's  conversation  with  Jon- 
athan, 1  Samuel,  xx.  7,  8 :  Thou  shalt  deal  kindly  with  thy 
servant.  Also,  Abigail's  address  to  David,  1  Samuel,  xxv. 
24-31 :  When  the  Lord  shall  have  dealt  well  with  my  lord, 
then  remember  thine  handmaid.  And  likewise  David's  address 
to  Achish,  1  Samuel,  xxviii.  2  :  Surely  thou  shalt  know  what 
thy  servant  can  do.  See  also  Daniel,  i.  12  :  Prove  thy  serv- 
ants. Also  ii.  7,  the  address  of  the  Chaldean  astrologers  to 
the  king :  Let  the  king  tell  his  servants  the  dream. 

Now  to  trace  the  delicate  distinctions  of  intercourse  in  the 
use  or  neglect  of  such  a  form,  and  the  manner  in  which  the 
necessity  of  an  independent  spirit  may  compel  its  abandon- 
ment, let  the  reader  mark  the  fact  that  Shadrach,  Meshach, 
and  Abednego,  in  their  interview  with  Nebuchadnezzar,  when 
they  encountered  the  rage  and  authority  of  the  king  in  full 
conflict  with  the  authority  of  God,  threw  aside  utterly  the 
formal  and  deferential  mode  of  address,  and  exclaimed,  in  the 
first  person :  "  O  Nebuchadnezzar,  we  are  not  careful  to  answer 
thee  in  this  matter.  Be  it  known  unto  thee,  O  king,  that  we 
will  not  serve  thy  gods,  nor  worship  the  golden  image  which 
thou  hast  set  up."  This  defiance  of  the  tyrant  was  far  more 
bold,  direct,  and  energetic,  than  if  they  had  said :  "  The 
king's  servants  will  not  worship  the  image  of  the  king."  But 
their  indignation  annulled  this  form  of  homage,  and  even  the 
intimation  of  being  the  king's  servants,  so  grateful  to  the 
sense  of  power,  they  rejected  from  their  language,  and,  rising 
to  the  dignity  of  equals  and  of  freemen,  they  said :  We,  O 
king,  will  not  obey  thee,  be  it  known  unto  thee.  We  will  not 
serve  thy  gods.  It  was  much  as  when,  with  us,  to  make  de- 
fiance stronger,  it  is  added,  I  tell  thee  to  thy  face,  I  will  not 
heed  thee. 


114  ELEVATED   MEANING   OF   SERVANT. 

But  this  deferential  form  is  more  especially  and  commonly 
the  usage  of  the  word  -ia.?,  evedh,  in  all  addresses  to  God,  and 
in  prayer.  Genesis,  xviii.  3 :  My  Lord,  if  now  I  have  found 
favor  in  thy  sight,  pass  not  away,  I  pray  thee,  from  thy  serv- 
ant. And  so  1  Kings,  viii.  28-32  and  1  Chronicles,  xvii.  17-19 : 
What  can  David  speak  more  to  thee  for  the  honor  of  thy  serv- 
ant, for  thou  knowest  thy  servant  ?  So  Psalm  xxvii.  9  :  Put 
not  thy  servant  away  in  anger.  Psalm  xxxi.  16 :  Make  thy 
face  to  shine  upon  thy  servant.  Daniel,  ix.  17  :  O  our  God, 
hear  the  prayer  of  thy  servant,  ^a»  nVspi-Vs. 

In  the  same  manner  in  which  the  verb  nay,  avadh,  is  used 
to  signify  the  service  of  God,  the  verbal  na.?>,  evedh,  is  also 
used  to  signify  the  servant  of  God ;  whether  the  application 
be  to  men  of  piety  generally,  those  who  trust  in  God,  or  to 
persons  called  and  appointed  of  God  to  particular  offices  and 
undertakings.  Psalm  xxxiv.  22  :  The  Lord  redeemeth  the  soul 
of  his  servants,  i^a?.  «JE!S  fijn1;  rnte.  Nehemiah,  i.  10:  Now 
these  are  thy  servants,  T-??.-  Psalm  cv.  42  :  He  remembered 
Abraham  his  servant,  *itiy.  Psalm  cv.  26 :  He  sent  Moses,  his 
servant,  'was.  So  likewise  the  verbal  rn'ay,  avodha,  is  used  of 
the  service  of  God,  and  of  his  temple,  and  of  the  righteous, 
as  in  Numbers,  iv.  47  and  Isaiah,  xxxii.  17,  the  verbal  nc?to, 
mauseh,  from  n»y,  to  do,  being  here  also  used  as  synonymous 
with  rnas,  avodhath.  1  Chronicles,  ix.  13  :  Able  men  for  the 
work  of  the  service  of  the  house  of  God,  trn'5>N*— rps  rn'ia* 
hss^to.  The  expression  in  Numbers,  iv.  47,  is  illustrative 
K»»  rn'a:>5  fii'ay  rn'a?.  "ta?.^,  to  do  the  service  of  the  ministry, 
and  the  service  of  the  burden  in  the  tabernacle  of  the  congre- 
gation. 

Now  then,  we  have  seen  how  the  meaning  of  the  verb  ias, 
avadh,  passes  from  the  general  idea  of  labor,  to  that  of  serv- 
ice for  another,  at  first  for  wages,  afterwards  in  bondage.  But 
the  derivative,  the  verbal  na^,  evedh,  is  never  used  in  any 
sense  corresponding  to  the  first  and  generic  sense  of  the  verb 
to  labor,  a  laborer.  It  never  means  an  independent  laborer, 


ELEVATED   MEANING   OF   SERVANT.  115 

as  when  it  is  said  that  Cain  was  a  tiller  of  the  ground.  The 
verb,  or  participle,  has  to  be  used  with  reference  to  Cain,  and 
not  the  noun,  for  as  yet,  the  thing  answering  to  the  noun,  the 
servant,  was  not ;  there  is  no  mention  of  service  at  the  will  or 
wages  of  another,  no  intimation  of  labor  for  hire,  and  no  men- 
tion of  servants. 

"  "WTien  Adam  delved,  and  Eve  span, 
"WTiero  was  then  the  serving  man  ?" 

Cain  was  a  tiller  of  the  ground,  Genesis,  iv.  2,  n»nN  -ray  rrr. 
He  was  a  man  tilling  the  ground,  a  man  cultivating  it,  but  he 
was  not  a  servant.  There  was  labor,  but  as  yet  no  servitude  ; 
it  is  the  participle  employed,  but  not  the  noun.  It  is  some- 
what remarkable  that  the  noun  is  never  once  employed,  nor 
does  the  word  servant  come  into  view  in  the  sacred  record, 
till  after  the  history  of  the  antediluvian  posterity  of  Adam  is 
finished.  Doubtless  there  was  the  reality  of  servitude  ;  there 
must  have  been  oppression  in  some  of  its  worst  forms,  for  the 
earth  was  filled  with  violence ;  but  there  is  no  intimation  of 
slavery,  and  the  example  of  some  modern  nations  is  sufficient 
to  show  that  there  may  be  violence,  despotism,  and  oppression 
of  the  most  terrible  nature,  even  where  the  system  of  per- 
sonal slavery  does  not  exist.* 

*  If  there  had  been  slavery  before  Natural    Right.      RAYNAL   observes 

the  deluge  this  would  certainly  be  no  that  if  Pope  Alexander  III.  had  been 

argument  in  its  favor,  no  more  than  inspired  with  the  love  of  justice  and 

than  the  mention  of  bond  and  free  in  humanity,   instead  of  saying  merely 

connection  with  the  Judgment  Day.  that  Christians  ought  not  to  be  slaves, 

Natural  justice  and  right  are  as  much  ho  would  have   declared   that   MAN 

against  slavery  as  against  murder ;  was  never  born  for  slavery,  that  none 

both  crimes  are  forma  of  assassina-  can  lawfully  hold  a  human  being  as  a 

tion.     See  the  ABB&  RAYNAL'S  ener-  slave,  that  if  the  slave  can  not  break 

getic  and  powerful  reasoning  (His-  his  chains  by  force,  he  may  flee,  and 

toiro  Philosophiquo  des  deux  Indes,  his  pretended  master  is  an  assassin 

Vol.  VI.,   90-112),    compared    with  if  ho  punishes  with  death  an  action 

GRANVILLE  SHARPE'S  Declaration  of  authorized  by  nature. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

FIEST  INSTANCE  OF  THE  WORD  FOE  SERVANT. — THE  CURSE  UPON  CANAAN  NOT  SLAV- 
ERY, BUT  NATIONAL  DOMINION.  —  EGYPT  AFTEE  FIVE  HUNDRED  TEARS  FROM  THK 
DELUGE. — WORDS  USED  FOR  MAID-SERVANTS. 

THE  curse  pronounced  upon  Canaan  contains  the  first  in- 
stance of  the  use  of  the  word  nri?,  evedh,  Genesis,  ix.  25,  a 
servant  of  servants,  t^-ia?.  15?.  No  mention  had  been  made 
of  servants  or  slaves  in  the  whole  antediluvian  history.  There 
were  neither  servants  nor  slaves  in  the  ark.  There  was  no 
slave  upon  the  earth  when  God  entered  into  covenant  with 
Noah.  The  whole  earth  was  peopled  Avith  freemen,  for  God 
would  have  the  new  experiment  begin  with  such,  and  the 
curse  of  servitude,  predicted  and  denounced  as  a  curse,  grew 
directly  out  of  sin.  "  Cursed  be  Canaan ;  a  servant  of  servants 
shall  he  be  unto  his  brethren." 

MEANING    OF    THE    CTJESE    ON    CANAAN. 

The  use  of  the  word  iaj>,  evedh,  by  Noah,  as  a  word  of  deg- 
radation, a  word  of  inferiority  and  subjection,  the  meaning 
of  which  was  well  understood,  shows  that  the  thing  indicated 
by  it  was  not  then  a  new  and  strange  thing.  At  the  same 
time  the  after  history  of  the  word,  and  its  indiscriminate  ap- 
plication to  servants  in  general,  and  service  of  all  kinds,  proves 
conclusively  that  it  was  not  a  specific  word  for  that  kind  of 
servitude  which  we  call  slavery.  But  if  there  had  been  the 
thing  there  would  have  been  the  name,  and  if  Noah  had  in- 
tended the  particular  thing,  he  would  have  used  the  specific 
name.  If  slavery  had  existed  among  the  antediluvians,  it  can 


CURSE    UPON    CANAAN.  117 

not  be  questioned  that  there  would  have  been  a  term  exclu- 
sively denoting  it ;  and  if  Noah  had  designed  to  threaten  that 
curse,  or  to  predict  it,  concerning  a  part  of  his  posterity,  he 
would  inevitably  have  used  that  terra,  and  not  a  term  applied 
to  all  kinds  of  service.  There  is  no  word  for  slavery  in  the 
Hebrew  language,  answering  to  our  word  slavery,  nor  to  the 
Greek  word  (JovAem,  although  that  word  is  sometimes  em- 
ployed in  the  Septuagint  to  translate  the  Hebrew  rnhy, 

•  "*  "' 

avodha,  as  in  Exodus,  vi.  6,  for  ornhsa,  from  their  bondage, 

viz.,  Egyptian  bondage.  It  is  certainly  a  fact  of  no  unimpor- 
tant significance,  that  there  is  no  word  in  Hebrew  which  spe- 
cifically signifies  slave  or  slavery  ;  and  there  is  the  best  of  all 
reasons  for  it :  the  reality  did  not  exist,  and  from  the  outset, 
when  the  language  was  formed,  the  root-word  labor  was  of 
necessity  taken  for  service,  and  from  that  the  various  con- 
structions have  been  formed,  and  no  word  for  slavery  has 
been  created. 

In  this  curse  upon  Canaan  there  is,  therefore,  no  proof  that 
what  we  call  slavery  was  intended ;  no  proof  that  the  state 
of  slavery  was  either  in  the  mind  of  the  speaker,  Noah,  or  in 
the  will  of  God,  considered  as  inspiring  the  prediction.  There 
is,  indeed,  no  declaration  that  either  the  curse  or  the  predic- 
tion was  God's,  no  intimation  that  Noah  was  inspired  of  God 
in  uttering  it,  no  more  than  in  planting  his  vineyard  ;  and 
were  it  not  for  the  gift  of  the  land  of  Canaan  to  Abraham, 
and  the  subjection  of  the  Canaanites  to  the  Hebrews,  there 
would  be  no  reason  for  supposing  a  divine  inspiration  in  the 
case,  since  there  is  no  reference  anywhere  to  the  prediction 
as  inspired.  But  whether  it  were  or  not,  it  is  not  probable 
that  the  word  servant,  used  by  Noah,  had  the  signification 
sometimes  attached  to  it  a  thousand  years  afterwards.  They 
assume  too  much  who  suppose  that  slavery  existed  among  the 
antediluvians,  there  being  not  the  least  trace  of  it,  and  no 
more  proof  of  it  than  that  the  immediate  posterity  of  Adam 
were  idolaters.  It  is  most  likely  that  man-stealing  and  man- 


118  CANAANTTES    NOT    SLAVES. 

selling  came  into  practice  along  with  idolatry,  fit  accompani- 
ments or  consequences  of  such  wickedness,  after  the  deluge. 

The  use  of  the  words  12?,  evedh,  servant,  and  fc^s?.  i$?» 
evedh  avadhim,  servants,  by  Noah,  can  not,  therefore,  be  as- 
sumed to  mean  any  thing  more  than  servants  and  under- 
servants,  even  were  the  passage  applied  in  a  personal  sense, 
which,  however,  is  not  the  sense  of  the  prediction. 

It  is  applied,  as  in  nuiny  other  cases,  to  the  subjection  of 
nations.  The  same  word  precisely  is  used  by  Isaac  in  regard 
to  the  dominion  of  Jacob  over  Esau,  Jacob's  posterity  being 
the  subject  of  Isaac's  prediction  as  the  dominant  power. 
Genesis,  xxvii.  37  :  All  his  brethren  have  I  given  to  him  for 
servants,  d^ssV.  I  have  made  him  (Jacob)  thy  lord,  TSS. 
This  did  not  mean  that  Jacob  and  his  posterity  were  to  be 
slaveholders,  and  Esau  and  his  posterity  slaves,  but  that  one 
nation  should  be  under  the  government  of  the  other.  J^et 
people  serve  thee,  f^a?  ^"S?:,  Genesis,  xxvii.  29.  Just  so  in 
the  original  prediction,  Genesis,  xxv.  23  :  The  elder  shall 
serve  the  younger,  13^,  yaavodh  /  nation  in  subjection  to  na- 
tion /  the  phrase  employed  by  Gesenius  is  populus  popido  ; 
people  shall  be  tributary  to  people.  The  prediction  in  the 
blessing  given  to  Esau,  as  well  as  that  to  Jacob,  and  the  com- 
pletion of  both,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word, 
and  the  nature  of  the  service  designed.  See  Genesis,  xxvii. 
40  :  Thou  shalt  serve  thy  brother,  -asp  $ph«,  but  shalt  break 
his  yoke  from  off  thy  neck.  So  accordingly  in  2  Samuel, 
viii.  14,  the  posterity  of  Esau  are  recorded  as  in  subjection 
to  the  posterity  of  Jacob,  but  not  as  slaves.  David  put  gar- 
risons in  Edom,  and  all  they  of  Edom  became  David's  serv- 
ants^ d"*"^*,  avadhim.  But  in  2  Kings,  viii.  22,  it  is  recorded 
that  under  the  reign  of  Jehoram,  892  B.  C.,  Edom  revolted  from 
under  the  hand  of  Judah,  and  made  a  king  over  themselves. 
This  kind  of  service  and  rebellion  is  recorded  in  similar  lan- 
guage in  Genesis,  xiv.  4 :  Twelve  years  they  served  Chedor- 
laomer,  «na»,  avdhu  •  in  the  thirteenth,  rebelled,  >n^»,  maradhu. 


WOEDS    FOE    MAID-SEEVANTS.  119 

EGYPT    AFTEE    FIVE     HUNDEED    YEAES. 

After  Genesis,  ix.  25,  it  is  full  five  hundred  years  before  we 
meet  the  word  nss,  evedh,  again,  or  any  indication  that  the 
reality  answering  to  it  exists  in  human  society ;  and  then  we 
meet  it  first  in  the  family  of  Abraham,  or  rather,  first  of  all, 
in  the  family  of  Pharaoh,  where  Abraham  for  a  season  resided. 
After  Abraham  went  down  into  Egypt,  and  was  received  into 
Pharaoh's  house,  and  entreated  well,  he  is  represented,  Genesis, 
xii.  16,  as  having  sheep  and  oxen,  and  he-asses,  and  men-serv- 
ants, ainss,  avad/iim,  and  maid-servants,  nhean,  shephahoth. 
Here  we  have,  as  yet,  no  commentary  on  the  word,  nothing 
by  which  we  might  be  permitted  to  imagine  or  assert  that 
these  in  Abraham's  family  were  slaves.  Hagar,  Sarah's  hand- 
maid, was  an  Egyptian ;  and,  doubtless,  was  taken  into  Abra- 
ham's household,  and  given  to  Sarah,  in  this,  his  first  visit  to 
Egypt.  But  Abraham  did  not  go  down  into  Egypt  to  copy 
Egyptian  manners,  or  to  adopt  into  his  own  household,  and 
set  at  the  foundation  of  the  domestic  and  national  policy,  of 
which  the  divine  Being  had  informed  him  he  was  to  be  the 
stock,  the  civil  and  social  principles  and  customs  of  a  people 
of  idolaters.  He  had  gone  on  compulsion  into  Egypt,  by 
reason  of  the  great  famine ;  but  his  idea  of  the  morals  and 
manners  of  the  Egyptians  may  be  gathered  from  his  anxietf^ 
and  distress  in  behalf  of  Sarah,  Genesis,  xii.  11,  12.  He  knew 
that  the  fear  of  God  was  not  in  Egypt.  The  question,  there- 
fore, very  naturally  conies  up:  Did  Abraham,  on  receiving 
these  men-servants  and  maid-servants  into  his  household,  re- 
ceive and  treat  them  according  to  the  principles  of  servitude 
then  prevalent  in  Egypt?  The  consideration  of  the  nature 
of  God's  covenant  with  Abraham  will  enable  us  the  better  to 
determine  this  question. 

WORDS    FOE    MAID-SEEVANTS. 

But,  in  the  meantime,  let  us  suspend  our  inquiry  as  to  the 
word  na.?,  evedh,  and  consider  the  meaning  of  the  two  words 


120  WORDS    FOE    MAID -SERVANTS. 

applied  to  Hagar,  and  designating  her  situation  in  Abraham's 
family.  These  are  the  Hebrew  words  nhso,  shiphhah,  and  WCN, 
amah.  Hagar  is  first  introduced  to  us  under  the  name  nhssj, 
.shiphhah,  Genesis,  xvi.  1,  2,  4,  5,  6,  8,  and  under  this  name 
Sarah  gives  her  to  Abraham  to  be  his  wife,  and  by  her  Ishmael 
is  born  unto  him,  and  the  condition  of  Ishmael  has  no  taint  of 
bondage  from  the  condition  of  his  mother.  The  Hebrew  pa- 
triarchs neither  held  nor  sold  their  own  children  for  slaves. 

Some  fifteen  years  after  Hagar's  first  appearance  as  a  nhsc, 
shiphhah,  Sarah,  enraged  at  the  mocking  of  Hagar's  son  Ish- 
inael,  calls  her  rrcvt,  amah,  rendered  by  our  translators  a  bond- 
woman, and  her  son  the  son  of  a  bondwoman,  Genesis,  xxi.  10. 
But  there  is  no  reason  for  translating  this  word  bondwoman 
rather  than  servant.  God,  speaking  to  Abraham  concerning 
the  whole  transaction,  calls  her  rnsN,  amah,  most  generally 
translated  handmaid  or  maid-servant,  and  says  to  Abraham, 
"  Of  the  son  of  the  handmaid,  n»Nn— ja,  ben-haamah,  will  I 
make  a  nation."  Now  this  same  word  nfc«,  amah,  is  used  in 
Psalm  cxvi.  16,  of  the  mother  of  David:  I  am  thy  servant,  and 
the  son  of  thine  handmaid,  5[W3$— )a,  ben-amathekha.  It  is 
also  used  by  Hannah,  1  Samuel,  i.  11,  addressing  the  Lord: 
Look  on  the  affliction  of  thine  handmaid,  ^MON,  amatheJcha, 
^peated  in  the  same  verse  three  times.  Also,  addressing  Eli, 
1  Samuel,  i.  16 :  Count  not  thine  handmaid,  ^»"»s«.  This  usage 
corresponds  with  that  of  the  word  is?,  evedh,  under  similar 
circumstances.  But  in  the  eighteenth  verse,  also  addressing 
Eli,  she  says :  Let  thine  handmaid,  ^rtjBti,  shiphhatheJcha,  find 
grace  in  thy  sight.  It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  words 
WOK,  amah,  and  nhsw,  shiphhah,  are  synonymous,  one  being  no 
more  indicative  of  a  state  of  bondage  than  the  other.  An- 
other instance  of  the  use  of  both  interchangeably  is  in  1  Sam- 
uel, xxv.  41,  in  Abigail's  address  to  David :  Behold,  let  thine 
handmaid,  SJMOK,  amah,  be  for  a  servant,  nriBipV,  shiphhah,  to 
wash  the  feet  of  the  servants,  -^a?,  avdhei,  of  my  Lord.  Here, 
then,  are  these  two  words,  at  periods  of  nearly  a  thousand 


WORDS    FOR    MAID-SERVANTS.  121 

years'  distance,  employed  in  the  same  manner,  applied  to  the 
same  persons.  The  impossibility  of  making  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  two,  as  to  dignity,  will  be  further  evident  by  exam- 
ining the  following  passages : 

Genesis,  xx.  14:  And  Abimelech  took  sheep  and  oxen,  and 
men-servants  and  women-servants,  nhBts>i  a^asi,  evedh  and 
shiphhah,  and  gave  to  Abraham. 

Genesis,  xx.  17:  God  healed  Abimelech,  and  his  maid-serv- 
ants, vrj'ntoNi,  amah. 

Genesis,  xii.  16:  Abram  had  men-servants  and  maid-serv- 
ants, nhsto,  shiphhak. 

Genesis,  xxi.  10:  Cast  out  this  bondwoman,  fiaxn,  amah. 

Genesis,  xxx.  43 :  Jacob  had  maid-servants,  nhnsto,  shiphhah. 

Genesis,  xxxi.  33 :  Jacob's  maid-servants1  tents,  nh»s,  amah. 

Exodus,  xi.  5 :  The  first-born  of  the  maid-servant,  nhstin, 
shiphhah. 

Exodus,  xx.  10 :  Man-servant  nor  maid-servant,  ^$»£,  amah. 

Exodus,  xxiii.  12:  The  son  of  thine  handmaid,  tjrajN— •; ja, 
amah. 

Deuteronomy,  v.  14  :  Man-servant  or  maid-servant,  tfinws, 
amah;  also  xii.  18;  xv.  17;  xvi.  11,  14. 

Exodus,  xxi.  7  :  If  a  man  sell  his  daughter  to  be  a  maid- 
servant, nte«V,  amah. 

Exodus,  xxi.  27,  32  :  Man-servant  or  maid-servant,  nfcN, 
amah. 

Judges,  ix.  18  ;  Jotham  calls  Abimlech  the  son  of  his  father's 
maid-servant,  'irwssr-ja,  amah,  who  was  his  father's  concubine 
at  Shechem. 

Ruth,  ii.  13,  applied  by  Ruth  to  herself  and  the  hand- 
maidens of  Boaz,  ^rjhB»,  shiphhah. 

Ruth,  iii.  9,  used  by  Ruth  twice,  thy  handmaid,  SjroaK,  amah. 

I  Samuel,  xxv.  14  :  Let  thine  handmaid,  ^^K,  amah. 

1  Samuel,  xxv.  25 :  But  I  thine  handmaid,  tf^fcN,  amah. 

1  Samuel,  xxv.  27 :  Thine  handmaid  hath  brought,  SJNJBW, 
shiphhah. 

6 


122  WOBDS    FOE    MAID-SEE  VANTS. 

1  Samuel,  xxv.  28  :  Trespass  of  thine  handmaid, 
amah. 

1  Samuel,  xxv.  31  :  Remember  thine  handmaid,  ^>SN,  amah. 

1  Samuel,  xxv.  41  :  Let  thine  handmaid,  ^MSN,  be  a  servant, 
nhBteV,  shiphhah. 

2  Samuel,  xiv.  15  :  Thy  handmaid,  ^nhaw,  shiphhah. 

2  Samuel,  xiv.  15  :  The  request  of  his  handmaid,  "IMSS., 
amah. 

2  Samuel,  xiv.  16  :  To  deliver  his  handmaid,  'IMEN,  amah. 

2  Samuel,  xiv.  17  :  Thine  handmaid  said,  tjM.hsw,  shiphhah. 

2  Samuel,  xiv.  19:  The  mouth  of  thine  handmaid,  tprj&sj, 
shiphhah. 

2  Samuel,  xiv.  6,  7,  12:  Thine  handmaid,  ^^BW,  shiphhah. 

2  Samuel,  xvi.  20  :  Handmaids,  of  his  servants,  i-na?.  r\'ih»s«, 


2  Samuel,  vi.  22,  David  calls  the  same,  maid-servants, 
teKft,  amah. 

Job,  xxxi.  13  :  My  maid-servant,  iffcx,  amah. 

Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  9,  10,  11,  16,  the  same  word  is  used  six 
times,  singular  and  plural,  for  maid-servants  of  the  Hebrews, 
coupled  with  men-servants,  '••nh**  rrrj&icrt,  shiphhah. 

These  instances  determine  the  usage  of  the  words.  They 
are  evidently  used  for  precisely  the  same  relation,  being  each 
applied,  indifferently,  to  the  maid-servant,  whether  Hebrew  or 
heathen,  just  as  the  word  n^y,  evedh,  is  applied  to  the  man- 
servant. Neither  word  seems  to  indicate  a  higher  grade  than 
the  other,  Job  using  HKN,  amah,  Jeremiah  ntiB»,  shiphhah,  and 
Moses  fifcN,  amah  and  nhs»,  shiphhah,  indiscriminately,  for  per- 
sons held  as  maid-servants,  both  Hebrew  and  heathen,  and  the 
usage  in  Samuel  putting  both  words  indifferently  into  the 
mouths  of  free  women,  speaking  of  themselves. 

SEPTUAGINT   TEANSLATIOJf   BY 

The  Septuagint  translation  uses  the  word  TraidtaK?)  for  both 
the  Hebrew  words,  matt,  amah,  and  fihB»,  shiphhah.  The  same 


WORDS    FOR    MAID-SERVANTS.  123 

word  is  used  of  Ruth,  where  the  Hebrew  is  the  feminine  of 
•ws,  naar,  a  young  man,  nstfrj  rnstn,  this  young  woman.  So 
Ruth  is  the  -naidioitr]  as  well  as  Hagar.  Also,  of  all  the  maidens 
of  Boaz  the  same  word  is  used,  as  in  Ruth,  ii.  22  :  His  maidens, 
riynss,  his  young  women,  and  ii.  23 :  The  maidens  of  Boaz, 
ty'a  n'i">ys,  £/«<?  young  women.  Boaz  himself  uses  the  same 
word,  ii.  8  :  My  maidens,  Ti'iy.s,  my  young  women  or  damsels. 
And  in  ii.  5,  6,  Boaz  asks  concerning  Ruth,  whose  damsel  she 
is  ?  rns?,  and  the  servant  answers,  the  Moabitish  damsel, 
rrjas'ite  rny.s,  young  woman. 

But  in  the  New  Testament,  the  same  word,  Traidtaitr],  is  em- 
ployed in  contrast  with  the  word  ehevOepag,  with  reference  to 
the  case  of  Hagar,  Galatians,  iv.  22,  the  servant  in  contrast 
with  tine  free  woman,i\\Q  word  servant  being  translated  bond- 
woman, though  the  same  is  in  other  places  simply  translated 
servant  or  damsel  or  maid,  as  in  Matthew,  xvi.  69,  Mark,  xiv. 
66  :  One  of  the  maids  of  the  high  priest,  pia  T&V  TcaLdiait&v 
rov  '  ApxiepKUf.  If  this  had  been  translated  one  of  the  bond- 
women of  the  high  priest,  it  would  have  been  an  unjustifiable 
assumption,  if  by  the  term  bondwoman  were  signified  slave. 
The  ordinary  usage  in  the  New  Testament  may  be  learned 
from  Matthew,  xxvi.  69;  Mark,  xiv.  66,  69;  Luke,  xii.  45, 
xxii.  56  ;  John,  xviii.  17  ;  Acts,  xii.  13,  xvi.  16.  Only  in  one 
of  these  cases  is  it  clear  that  the  word  probably  signifies  a 
slave,  and  that  is  the  case  in  Acts,  xvi.  16,  of  the  damsel  pos- 
sessed of  the  spirit  of  divination,  who  brought  much  gain  to 
her  masters,  who  were  pagans,  idolaters.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  word  dou/U;  is  used  only  three  times,  Luke,  i.  38,  48,  and 
Acts,  ii.  18,  in  all  three,  spoken  of  servants  and  handmaidens 
of  the  Lord. 

It  is,  therefore,  impossible  to  determine,  merely  from  the 
word  TraidioKr),  the  exact  condition  signified :  for  the  term  in 
the  New  Testament,  though  it  implies  service,  in  a  state  of 
servitude,  does  not  imply  necessarily  bond-service  or  slavery, 
but  may  be  used  also  of  a  free  person  hired,  a  hired  servant, 


124 


WORDS    FOE    MAID-SERVANTS. 


as  the  "vste,  sakir,  of  the  Hebrews,  or  also  a  free  maiden,  in 
no  respect  under  servitude.  As  applied  to  Hagar,  the  term 
used  by  Sarah  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  by  Paul  in  the  New, 
would  seem  to  apply  more  directly  and  specifically  to  her  orig- 
inal condition  among  the  Egyptians,  and  not  to  her  state  in 
the  family  of  Abraham.  In  Abraham's  family,  and  as  his  wife, 
she  certainly  was  not  his  bond-servant  or  slave  ;  and  the  sar- 
casm of  Sarah  is  directed  to  her  focmer  state,  out  of  which 
she  had  been  raised,  and  especially  when  presented  by  Sarah 
to  Abraham  to  be  his  wife.* 


*  Two  points  are  to  be  specially  re- 
garded in  considering  Hagar's  con- 
dition. 1.  The  name  given  to  her 
bears  no  indication  of  slavery.  Some 
have  derived  it  from  the  Hebrew  for 
stranger,  so  that  Hagar's  name  would 
mean  this  stranger.  But  Gesenius 
gives  as  its  definition  the  word  flight, 
from  an  unused  root  signifying  to  flee. 
Hence,  also,  the  Ilegira,  for  the 
flight  of  Mahomet.  But  as  Hagar 
bore  this  name  before  her  flight  from 
Sarah,  it  is  more  likely  to  have  been 
the  name  of  a  stranger. 

2.  Her  condition  as  a  servant, 
whatever  it  might  have  been,  conveys 
no  taint  of  servitude  or  subjection  to 
her  offspring.  If,  therefore,  it  could 
be  imagined  that  modern  slaveholders 
are  justified  in  holding  slaves,  be- 
cause Abraham  held  Hagar,  they  are 


also  bound  by  the  same  example  to 
give  freedom  to  the  children  of  their 
slaves.  If  they  claim  a  divine  per- 
mission they  must  take  the  whole  rule 
or  none.  They  must  strike  out  from 
then*  code  the  infamous  principle,  in- 
troduced from  Pagan  slavery,  but 
baptized  by  Christians  (so  called)  as  a 
rule  of  justice,  piety  and  divine  the- 
ology, that  partus  sequitur  ventrem^ 
In  fine,  if  Abraham's  example  with 
Hagar  were  followed,  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  slavery  would  come  to  an  end 
in  a  moment.  It  is  nothing  but  the 
savage  brand  of  Paganism,  conveying 
the  act  and  quality  of  man-stealing, 
as  a  legal  right  upon  the  posterity  of 
the  stolen  parents,  and  adopted  by 
Christianity  (so  called)  as  a  right  and 
a  missionary  virtue,  that  sustains  the 
system. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

WORD-ANALYSIS  THROUGH  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM. — MEANING  OF  SOULS  GOTTEN  m 
HARAN.— USAGE  OP  PHKABES  FOR  DOMESTIC  SERVICE. — No  INTIMATIONS  OF  SLAV- 
ERY IN  DOMESTIC  LIFE. — PRINCIPLES  OF  JUSTICE  AND  EQUITY. — ABRAHAM'S  SERV- 
ANTS NOT  BOUND  BY  COMPULSION. 

WE  continue  now  our  investigation  by  tracing  the  words  of 
service  in  their  usage,  renewing  thus  our  analysis  of  the  house- 
hold of  Abraham  in  a  somewhat  varied  light.  The  repetition 
of  references,  which  becomes  necessary,  may  be  endured,  in  con- 
sideration" of  the  necessity  of  confirming  every  part  of  our  argu- 
ment, leaving  no  position  at  hazard,  no  citadel  unoccupied,  or  in 
the  hands  of  the  enemy.  Following  the  word-analysis  through 
the  life  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  the  next  step  is  found 
in  Genesis,  xiv.  14,  15  :  Abrain  armed  his  trained  ones,  as  our 
translation  has  it,  born  in  his  own  house,  \*i*  ^\^  i^^tj- 
There  were  in  number  three  hundred  and  eighteen ;  and  he 
divided  himself  against  the  enemy,  he  and  his  servants, 
i^as. 

In  this  passage,  the  word  Sp.fi,  haniJch,  the  verbal  from 
tj:h,  instructed  ones,  experienced,  proved,  seems  to  be  used  as 
synonymous  with  is*,  evedh,  servant,  and  both  words  are 
equivalent  with  '.rro  "^V",  yelidhe  betho,  the  born  in  his  own 
house,  the  sons  of  his  house.  In  the  twenty-fourth  verse  the 
same  are  called  young  men,  Q^ysh,  that  which  the  young  men 
have  eaten.  These  young  men,  though  born  in  Abraham's 
house,  were  not  slaves,  and  an  examination  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case,  and  of  the  phrases  rvo  fb*,  yelidh  beth, 
the  born  of  the  house,  and  tva— ja,  ben-beth,  the  son  of  the 
house,  will  show  the  extreme  mistake  of  defining  either  of 


126  HOUSEHOLD    OF    ABRAHAM. 

these  expressions  as  signifying  necessarily  a  slave ;  for  Hebrew 
servants  might  be  the  born  of  the  house,  but  could  not  under 
any  circumstances  be  slaves. 

In  Genesis,  xv.  3,  the  phrase  used  is  ir^a— j:s,  ben-bethi,  the 
son  of  my  house,  one  born  in  my  house  is  mine  heir. 

But  it  is  clear  that  at  this  time  Abraham  had  other  servants 
besides  those  born  in  his  house ;  at  a  previous  period  he  had 
received  such  in  Egypt,  where,  as  a  consequence  of  Pharaoh's 
favor,  he  had  men-servants  and  maid-servants,  or  an  increas- 
ing number  of  them. 

In  Genesis,  xii.  5,  there  is  mention  of  the  souls  that  Abram 
aud  Lot  had  gotten  in  Haran.  Not  unfrequently  the  mon- 
strous assumption  has  been  taken,  without  one  particle  of 
evidence,  without  even  an  intimation  looking  that  way,  that 
these  souls  meant  slaves,  that  they  were  such.  With  just  as 
much  authority  we  might  presume  and  assert  that  the  cattle 
spoken  of  as  Abraham's  and  Lot's  property,  meant  souls,  and 
that  when  it  is  affirmed  that  they  increased  their  substance, 
the  word  substance  means  souls.  The  Chaldee  paraphrasts 
maintain  a  much  more  likely  assumption,  when  they  insist  that 
the  souls  gotten  were  proselytes  gained  by  Abraham  to  the 
true  faith.  We  might  with  superior  propriety  assume  that 
the  phrase  means  persons  whom  Abraham  was  able  to  per- 
suade to  go  forth  with  him  from  his  own  country  to  the 
promised  land.*  At  Bethel  they  were  so  rich  in  cattle  and 
silver  and  gold,  in  flocks  and  herds  and  tents,  that  the  land 
was  not  able  to  bear  them  together,  and  the  quarrels  among 
their  herdmen  led  to  their  separation.  At  this  period  they 

*    Smith's  Sacred  Annals,   Patri-  had  gotten  in  Haran'  (verse  5),  use 

archal  Age,  page  448 :  "  Many  com-  these   words,    '  the    souls   of  those 

mentators  believed  that  Abram  not  whom    they   proselyted   in    Haran.' 

only  worshiped   God  in  his  family,  Abraham  was  certainly  called  away 

but  diligently  taught  his  name  and  from  all  idolatrous  influence,  that  he 

his  law  to  those  with  whom  he  came  might  be  a  witness  for  the  truth  to 

in  contact.     Hence  the  Chaldee  para-  all  the  nations  with  which  he  came  in 

phrasts,  when  rendering  the  clause  as  contact."     Page  439. 
given  by  Moses,  '  the  souls  that  they 


PHRASES    OF    SERVICE.  127 

were  nomadic  chiefs,  and  those  that  were  born  in  their  tents 
belonged  to  their  households,  and  were  dependent  upon 
them,  under  the  guardianship  and  care  of  the  patriarchal  an- 
thority.  A  patriarchal  community  that  could  muster  three 
hundred  and  eighteen  young  men  to  bear  arms,  born  under 
Abraham's  government,  and  under  allegiance  of  service  to 
him,  must  have  been  numerous ;  and,  besides  these  depend- 
ents, he  had  other  servants  obtained  with  money  of  the  stran- 
ger ;  among  these  his  herdmen  may  have  been  comprised,  for 
the  phrase  bought  with  money  was  applied,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  such  a  purchase  or  contract  as  secured  the  right  to  their 
time  and  labor  for  a  limited  period.  In  regard  to  the  Hebrews, 
this  is  clearly  demonstrated  from  the  very  first  law  on  record 
in  this  matter,  Exodus,  xxi.  2  :  If  thou  buy  a  Hebrew  servant, 
six  years  he  shall  serve,  rtij?in  13,  if  thou  buy,  the  same  word 
being  used  as  in  the  description  of  the  portion  of  Abraham's 
household  designated  as  bought  with  money.  Parents  were 
accustomed  sometimes  thus  to  sell  the  services  of  their  chil- 
dren. It  was  something  like  the  purchase  of  apprentices,  or 
the  contract  of  an  apprenticeship  for  a  number  of  years. 
Hosea  bought  his  wife,  Hosea,  iii.  2.  The  term  t^-fcipw, 
miknath  keseph,  bought  with  money,  or  the  purchase  of 
money,  does  not,  therefore,  necessarily  imply  an  unlimited 
servile  sale;  and,  as  we  shall  see,  a  restriction  was  finally 
imposed  on  all  such  transactions  by  the  laws  of  jubilee,  ren- 
dering the  system  of  what  we  call  slavery  impossible. 

Here,  then,  are  three  phrases  demanding  careful  considera- 
tion :  ma  T'V.i  yelidh  beth,  ma— ja,  ben-beth,  and  tjp.s— hi|5»,  and 
miknath-keseph.  In  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  7,  we  have  the  ma— 55,  ben- 
beth,  thus :  I  acquired  servants  and  maidens,  m.htw  Q'nay,  and 
sows  of  my  house  were  mine,  •£  rrrr  ma— 'sax  In  Genesis,  xv.  3, 
a  son  of  my  house  is  mine  heir,  TPS— ja.  These  two  phrases, 
ma  T»V.i  yelidh  beth,  and  ma— ja,  ben-beth,  seem  to  be  nearly 
synonymous,  but  the  ma— ja.,  ben-beth,  the  son  of  the  house,  is 
descriptive  of  a  class  of  servants  more  affectionately  attached, 


128  PHRASES     OF    SEKYICE. 

and  enjoying  greater  privileges,  with  greater  confidence  re- 
posed in  them.  The  whole  three  hundred  and  eighteen  of 
Abraham's  young  men  are  called  rpa  T>V?,  yelidh  beth,  born 
of  the  house,  that  is,  of  the  families  under  his  authority  and 
patriarchal  government  and  care ;  but  the  rvo—)a,  ben-beth, 
the  son  of  his  house,  who  might  be  his  heir,  may  have  been  of 
his  own  immediate  household.  In  Genesis,  xvii.  12,  13,  23,  27, 
in  the  detail  of  the  covenant  of  circumcision,  and  the  execu- 
tion of  that  rite  on  all  born  in  Abraham's  house,  the  phrase 
used  is  zva  n^,  yelidh  beth.  Elsewhere  it  is  very  seldom 
found,  once  in  Leviticus,  xxii.  11,  concerning  the  priest's 
family,  and  who  in  it  may,  and  who  may  not,  eat  of  the  holy 
things;  no  stranger,  nor  any  sojourner,  nor  any  mere  hired 
servant  of  the  priest  shall  eat  thereof;  but  the  servant  bought 
with  his  money,  and  he  that  is  born  in  his  house,  Sn^a  T>Vl» 
yelidh  betho,  may  eat  of  it.  The  hired  servant  was  not  re- 
garded as  an  inseparable  part  and  fixture  of  the  priest's 
family,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  servant  born  in  his  house 
was,  and  had  not  the  same  privileges.  A  hired  servant 
might  be  a  foreigner,  but  a  servant  born  in  the  house 
was  a  native  of  the  land,  and  might  be  also  a  native  He- 
brew. 

Neither  can  this  phrase,  born  of  the  house,  with  safety  or 
correctness  be  assumed  as  always  specifically  implying  serv- 
itude of  any  kind,  or  a  servile  state  ;  for  it  might  be  right  the 
opposite.  It  might  be  used  of  freemen  as  well  as  servants, 
and  of  the  children  of  the  master  and  mistress  of*the  house. 
In  Leviticus,  xviii.  9,  a  similar  phrase  is  employed  of  the 
daughter  of  the  family,  daughter  of  thy  mother,  born  of  thy 
house,  rra  M"V«  ^paN~ria.  In  Jeremiah,  ii.  14,  it  has  been 
supposed  to  be  used  as  synonymous,  or  nearly  so,  with  la.?, 
evedh.  Is  Israel  a  servant,  -raj??  ?  evedh.  Is  he  a  home-born,  rra 
T>V)— 6s  ?  yelidh  beth.  But  these  words  are  not  synonymes, 
and  a  very  different  translation  of  this  verse  is  possible,  as 
may  be  seen  in  the  note  of  Blayney,  in  his  translation  and 


PHRASES    OF    SERVICE.  129 

commentary  on  this  prophet,  a  passage  which  is  worthy  of 
consideration.  He  translates  Jeremiah,  ii.  14,  thus :  Is  Israel 
a  slave  f  Or  if  a  child  of  the  household,  wherefore  is  he  ex- 
posed to  spoil  f  And  he  remarks  "  that  rpa  T>X?»  yelidh  beth, 
answers  to  the  Latin  \vordjiliusfamilias,  and  stands  opposed 
to  a  slave.  The  same  distinction  is  made  Galatians,  iv.  7, 
and  an  inference  drawn  from  it  in  a  similar  manner  :  '  Where- 
fore thou  art  no  more  a  servant  (a  slave),  but  a  son  ;  and  if  a 
son,  then  an  heir  of  God  through  Christ.'  As  Christians 
now,  so  the  Israelites  heretofore,  were  the  children  of  God's 
household  ;  and  if  so,  they  seemed  entitled  to  his  peculiar  care 
and  protection." 

The  passage  is  susceptible  of  this  rendering.  Is  Israel  a 
servant,  na»?  evedh  ;  but  if  a  home-born,  »rs  1^7— SK,  yelidh 
beth,  why  is  he  yet  spoiled  ?  If  he  were  an  n^,  evedh,  merely, 
he  might  be  expected  to  be  rigorously  treated,  to  be  carried 
into  captivity,  and  "  sold  with  the  selling  of  a  bondman." 
But  if  a  home-born,  then  under  a  care  and  privilege,  which 
would  preserve  him  from  such  treatment.  The  ordinary  in- 
terpretation is  different,  grounded  on  the  idea  that  the  ques- 
tion is  equivalent  to  a  negation.  Israel  is  not  a  servant,  nei- 
ther -0?,  evedh,  nor  rra  T»X:  yelidh  beth,  but  is  God's  own  son, 
and  free  born.  Why  then  is  he  become  a  prey  ?  Because  of 
his  own  wickedness. 

That  the  phrase  rra  f>V.»  yelidh  beth,  does  not  necessarily 
mean  a  servant,  or  a  bondman  in  contradistinction  from  a 
freeman,  appears  from  Genesis,  xvii.  27.  After  relating  the 
circumcision  of  Abraham,  and  Ishmael  his  son,  it  is  added  that 
all  the  men  of  his  house,  born  in  his  house,  and  bought  with 
money  of  the  stranger,  were  circumcised  with  him.  It  is  ab- 
surd to  suppose  that  of  all  Abraham's  dependent  community 
or  tribe,  for  such  are  the  households  here  designated,  not  one 
male  was  accounted  a  freeman.  Every  male  among  the  men 
of  Abraham's  house  was  circumcised,  and  all  the  men  of 
Abraham's  house  are  divided  into  these  two  classes  only,  born 

C* 


130 


NO    INTIMATIONS    OF    SLAVERY. 


in  the  house,  or  bought  with  money  of  the  stranger.  In  the 
next  chapter,  xviii.  7,  Abraham  is  described  as  fetching  a  calf 
from  the  herd,  and  giving  it  to  a  young  man,  "i?**,  to  dress  it. 
This  young  man.  was  in  Abraham's  service,  of  Abraham's 
household,  but  there  is  no  intimation  whatever  of  his  being  in 
the  condition  of  a  slave.  In  fine,  we  might  as  well  assert  that 
our  domestic  household  animal,  the  cat,  was  precisely  the  same 
animal  with  the  South  American  jaguar  or  the  Bengal  tiger, 
as  assume  that  the  servants  of  Abraham's  household  were 
what  we  call  slaves.  There  might  be  families  beneath  his  pa- 
triarchal authority,  neither  the  head  nor  the  children  of  which, 
though  born  in  his  house,  dependent  on  him,  as  the  ma  11^, 
yelidh  beth,  were  in  any  condition  approximating  to  that  of 
slaves.* 


*  The  history  of  the  word  SLAVE  is 
instructive.  -Gibbon,  in  his  55tb. 
chapter,  traces  it  to  the  captivity  of 
"  the  Sclavonian,  or  more  properly 
Slavonian,  race."  "  From  the  Euxine 
to  the  Adriatic,  in  the  state  of  cap- 
tives, or  subjects,  or  allies,  or  ene- 
mies of  the  Greek  empire,  they  over- 
spread the  land  ;  and  the  national 
appellation  of  THE  SLAVES  has  been 
degraded  by  chance  or  malice  from 
the  signification  of  glory  to  that  of 
servitude." 

"  This  conversion  of  a  national  into 
an  appellative  name  appears  to  have 
arisen  in  the  eighth  century  in  the 
oriental  Prance,  where  the  princes 
and  bishops  were  rich  in  Sclavonian 
captives.  From  thence  the  word  was 
extended  to  general  use,  to  the  mod- 
ern languages,  and  even  to  the  stylo 
of  the  last  Byzantines  (see  the  Greek 
and  Latin  glossaries  of  Ducange.) 
The  confusion  of  the  Zep/?2.o«,  or 
SERVIANS,  with  the  Latin  Servi, 
was  still  more  fortunate  and  famil- 
iar."— GIBBON'S  DECLINE  AND  FALL, 
chap.  55. 


The  only  instance  in  which  the 
word  slave  has  been  intruded  in  our 
English  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  is  that  of  Jeremiah,  ii.  14, 
where  the  confession  that  there  is  no 
such  word  in  the  original  was  made 
by  the  translators  themselves,  in  put- 
ing  the  word  slave  in  italics.  The  origi- 
nal reads,  "  Is  ho  a  home  born  ?"  The 
translators  added,  "  Is  he  a  home- 
born  slave  ?"  This  was  a  most  singu- 
larly unauthorized  and  contradictory 
assertion.  It  amounted  to  an  interpo- 
lation in  the  translation,  and  by 
means  of  it,  of  the  falsehood  that  there 
was,  or  might  be,  under  the  Hebrew 
constitution,  such  a  tiling  as  a  slave 
and  such  a  domestic  iniquity  as  that 
of  slavery. 

The  origin  of  the  word  SERVUS  is 
better  known,  from  the  custom  of 
preserving  for  sale  the  captives  taken 
in  war,  who  were,  therefore,  from  the 
verb  servare,  to  preserve,  denominated 
servi,  the  preserved.  "The  words  ser- 
vus  and  mancipium  designated  slaves 
so  made ;  servus,  as  having  been  pre- 
served by  the  victor,  d  vidore  servatits, 


NO    INTIMATIONS    OF    SLAVERY. 


131 


From  the  building  of  Babel  to  the  time  of  Terah,  Abra- 
ham's father,  it  was  but  two  hundred  years,  and  during  this 
period  there  is  not  the  slightest  intimation  of  any  such  vast 
social  inequality  in  the  community  as  that  of  slavery  on  the 
one  hand  and  freedom  on  the  other ;  nor  is  there  time  and 
scope,  nor  are  there  causes  sufficient,  in  the  generations  of 
Shem,  to  produce  such  a  condition,  where  the  population  was 
sparse,  and  the  whole  race,  within  little  more  than  three  gen- 
erations, on  a  perfect  equality.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  how 
the  habits  of  patriarchal  government  and  life  could  arise  and 
be  established,  but  that  a  state  of  slavery  should  become  the 
social  state,  while  Noah  and  his  family  were  still  living,  is  in- 


or,  according  to  some  etymologists, 
from  the  Greek  root,  epu,  or  ipvu,  to 
drag,  to  rescue  from  death;  manci- 
pium,  from  d  manu  capere,  to  take 
captive  with  the  hand." — Puss.  RO- 
MAN ANTIQ.,  chap.  5.,  sec.  liii. 

See,  also,  EDWARDS'  ROMAN  SLAV- 
ERY, in  the  sixth  volume  of  the  Bib- 
lical Repository,  411:  "The  origin  of 
the  word  servus,"  says  Augustine,  de 
Civit.,  lib.  xix.,  chap,  xv.,  "is  under- 
stood to  be  derived  from  the  fact  that 
prisoners,  who,  by  the  laws  of  war, 
might  have  been  put  to  death,  were 
preserved  by  the  victors,  and  made 
slaves." 

Now,  our  modern  kidnappers  and 
slaveholders,  with  the  new  and  gra- 
cious theory  of  being  the  honored  in- 
struments of  God's  missionary  provi- 
dence of  salvation  to  the  Africans  by 
means  of  the  merciful  reduction  of 
them  to  slavery,  and  consequent  in- 
troduction to  Christianity,  might  take 
a  hint  from  these  etymologies,  and 
establish  for  themselves  and  their 
victims  a  new  nomenclature,  com- 
memorative of  piety  and  love.  In- 
stead of  being  narmed  pirates,  the 
kidnappers  should  be  called  mission- 


ary pioneers,  and  their  victims,  instead 
of  being  called  slaves,  should  be  called 
translated  ones,  not  servi,  but  salvati, 
and  the  slaveholders  should  be  called 
salvaiores,  saviours.  To  designate  the 
subjects  of  such  providential  mission- 
ary grace,  the  old  word  salvages  might 
be  re-adopted  in  our  language,  to  sig- 
nify persons  transported  from  the  con- 
dition of  savages  to  the  state  of  salva- 
tion. Or,  the  kidnappers  might  be 
designated  as  Redemptionists,  and  the 
slaveholders  as  Ministrants  and  Guar- 
dians for  them  who  are  the  heirs  of 
such  a  salvation.  And  inasmuch  as 
the  children  of  those  thus  providen- 
tially redeemed  from  savage  freedom 
in  Africa  are  appointed  for  ever  to  the 
salvation  of  slavery  in  America,  from 
which  state  of  salvation  they  never 
can  bo  plucked  away,  the  heirs  of  this 
salvation  might  bo  named  consecrated 
ones,  or,  bettor  still,  conserved,  and  the 
owners  of  the  conserved  race  might 
appropriate  to  themselves  the  much- 
abused  term  Conservatives.  Are  they 
not  all  ministering  spirits,  sent  forth 
to  minister  unto  them  who  shall  bo 
heirs  of  such  salvation  ? 


132  NO     INTIMATIONS     OF    SLAVERY. 

credible.  There  are  no  intimations  of  slavery  in  Bethuel's 
family,  nor  in  Laban's  after  him,  in  Mesopotamia.  We  find 
Rachel  feeding  her  father's  sheep,  and  performing  servile 
labor,  and  all  the  indications  are  of  a  simple  social  life,  in 
which  slavery  was  unknown.  Up  to  the  time  of  his  sojourn 
in  Canaan,  Abraham  had  been  engaged  in  no  wars  or  preda- 
tory excursions,  so  that  that  which  was  afterwards  so  preg- 
nant a  source  of  captivity  and  slavery,  did  not  in  his  family 
exist,  and  indeed  the  very  first  war  in  which  we  find  him  a 
conqueror,  we  find  him  also  refusing  to  hold  any  of  the  con- 
quered as  his  captives.  There  was  no  black  color  as  yet  to 
stigmatize  a  servile  race  as  the  legitimate  property  of  the 
white  races.  There  were  no  laws  by  which  free  persons  might 
be  seized  and  sold  for  their  jail-fees,  not  being  able  to  prove 
their  freedom.  In  short,  a  more  gross  and  gratuitous  assump- 
tion can  hardly  be  imagined  than  that  the  three  hundred 
and  eighteen  young  men  born  and  trained  under  Abraham's 
jurisdiction,  of  his  household,  were  slaves !  The  tie  between 
him  and  them  was  assuredly  not  of  compulsion,  or  oppression, 
or  legal  chattelism,  but  of  service  and  obedience,  at  least  as 
justly  required,  and  freely  yielded,  as  that  of  hereditary  clans 
in  Scotland,  or  tribes  and  families  in  Arabia. 

The  other  phrase,  tjos— ns^tt,  miknath  keseph,  Genesis,  xvii. 
12,  the  possession  of  money,  the  thing  bought  with  money,  is 
applied  to  any  acquisition  gained  by  purchase,  and  also  to  the 
price  paid.  In  Genesis,  xxiii.  9,  18,  20,  it  is  used  as  synony- 
mous with  mhs,  the  possession  of  his  burying-place.  Accord- 
ing to  the  use  of  the  verb  nijj,  kanah,  to  buy,  from  which  it  is 
derived,  it  would  be  suitably  applied  to  acquisitions  transitory 
as  well  as  permanent,  and  to  attainments  of  the  mind  as  well 
as  earthly  riches.  The  same  verb  n:j?,  kanah,  to  buy,  as  we  have 
before  noted,  is  applied  by  Boaz  to  his  purchase  of  the  field  that 
was  Elimelech's,  and  also  to  his  purchase  of  Ruth  herself  to  be 
his  wife.  I  have  bought,  •'tv'Sj?,  all  that  was  Elirnelech's,  more- 
over, Ruth  have  I  purchased,  ^sj?,  to  be  my  wife.  It  is  also 


USAGE    OF    THE  WORD  BOUGHT. 


133 


applied,  Proverbs,  iv.  7,  to  the  acquisition  of  wisdom.  Prov- 
erbs, xv.  32,  to  the  getting  of  understanding.  So  also  xvi.  16, 
and  xix.  8.  It  is  applied  in  Isaiah,  xi.  11,  to  the  Lord's  recov- 
ering of  people.  Cain's  name,  -pj?,  that  is,  gotten  from  the  Lord, 
was  given  because  Eve  said,  Genesis,  iv.  1,  ^<I?J?,  I  have  gotten 
a  man  from  the  Lord.  In  Psalm  Ixxviii.  54,  God  is  said  to 
have  purchased,  ni;$>,  this  mountain  with  his  right  hand.  And 
in  Proverbs,  viii.  22 :  God  is  said  to  have  possessed  wisdom  in 
the  beginning,  ^ssj?,  kanani.* 


*  BARNES'  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  SCRIP- 
TURAL VIEWS  OP  SLAVERY,  chap.  iiL, 
p.  75.  "  The  word  bought  occurs  in  a 
transaction  between  Joseph  and  the 
people  of  Egypt,  in  such  a  way  as 
further  to  explain  its  meaning.  "When, 
during  the  famine,  the  money  of  the 
Egyptians  had  failed,  and  Joseph  had 
purchased  all  the  land,  the  people  pro- 
posed to  become  his  servants.  When 
the  contract  was  closed,  Joseph  said 
to  them,  '  Behold,  I  have  bought  you — 
"lT'?I'ti  kanilhi — this  day,  and  your 
land,  for  Pharaoh.'  Genesis,  xlvii.  23. 
The  nature  of  this  contract  is  immedi- 


ately specified.  They  were  to  be  re- 
garded as  laboring  for  Pharaoh.  The 
land  belonged  to  him,  and  Joseph 
furnished  the  people  with  seed,  or 
stocked  the  land,  and  they  were  to 
cultivate  it  on  shares  for  Pharaoh. 
The  fifth  part  was  to  be  his,  and  the 
other  four  parts  were  to  be  theirs. 
There  was  a  claim  on  them  for  labor, 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  the  claim 
extended  further.  No  farmers,  now, 
who  work  land  on  shares,  would  be 
willing  to  have  their  condition  do 
scribed  as  one  of  slavery." 


CHAPTER,    XIII. 

THE  SERVILE  BELATION  FOE  MONET  KO  PROOF  OF  SLAVERY. — Two  METHODS  OF  A, 
HEBREW  SELLING  HIMSELF. — No  SLAVERY  IN  EITHER. — SONS  OF  THE  HOUSK 
NEVER  SLAVES. — ARGUMENT  FROM  MOSES  TO  ABRAHAM. — ABRAHAM'S  STEWARD, 
THE  ELDER  OF  HIS  HOUSE. — ELDERS  OF  THE  LAND. — IN  NO  SENSE  A  SLAVE. — SLAV- 
ERY IMPOSSIBLE,  ALONG  WITH  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  JUSTICE  AND  EQUITY  REVEALED 
TO  A  in:  A H  A.M. 

IT  is  clear,  then,  that  the  circumstance  of  the  servile  rela- 
tion being  acquired  by  money,  and  called  the  purchase  or  pos- 
session of  money,  did  not  necessarily  constitute  it  slavery,  any 
more  than  the  purchase  of  a  wife  constituted  her  a  slave,  or 
the  purchase  of  wisdom  constituted  that  a  slave.  Abraham 
could  acquire  a  claim  upon  the  service  of  a  man  during  his 
life  by  purchase  from  himself;  he  could  acquire  the  allegiance 
of  a  man  and  his  family,  and  of  all  that  should  be  born  in  the 
family,  by  similar  contract,  not  to  be  broken  but  by  mutual 
agreement ;  and,  in  this  way,  in  the  course  of  years  he  might 
have  a  vast  household  under  his  authority,  born  in  his  house 
and  purchased  with  his  money,  but  not  one  of  them  a  slave. 
He  might  in  the  same  way  purchase  of  the  stranger  whatever 
claim  the  stranger  possessed  to  the  service  of  the  person  thus 
sold,  and  yet  the  person  thus  transferred  to  Abraham's  house- 
hold might  be  a  voluntary  party  in  the  transaction,  and  in  no 
sense  a  slave.  It  is  not  possible  to  suppose  that,  if  a  servant 
were  offered  to  Abraham  for  his  purchase,  who  could  say,  I 
was  stolen  by  my  master,  as  Joseph  could  say,  it  is  not  possi- 
ble to  suppose  that  Abraham  would  consider  such  a  purchase  as 
just,  or  that  he  could  rightfully  make  such  a  person  his  serv- 
ant, without  his  own  consent.  There  is  no  intimation  what- 


SELLING   ONE'S   SELF.  135 

ever  of  any  such  unrighteous  or  compulsory  service  in  Abra- 
ham's household ;  there  is  no  ground  for  the  supposition  that 
he  either  bought  slaves,  or  traded  in  slaves,  or  held  slaves  in 


any  way.* 


HEBREWS    SELLING    THEMSELVES. 


In  Leviticus,  xxv.  47,  there  is  mention  of  two  modes  in 
which  a  poor  man  might  sell  himself  for  a  servant,  namely, 
being  a  Hebrew,  he  might  sell  himself  to  a  stranger  or  so- 
journer,  or,  to  the  stock  of  a  stranger's  family.  Here  we 
have  great  light  cast  on  these  transactions.  The  poor  man 
sells  himself  on  account  of  his  poverty,  but  not  as  a  slave. 
He  may  sell  himself  not  merely  to  one  master,  during  that 
master's  life,  but  to  the  stock  of  the  family ',  nhst-w  ij??>V,  as  a 
fixture  of  the  household.  It  is  supposable  that  he  might  thus 
sell  himself  with  his  children,  or  make  a  contract  for  the  service 
of  his  children  that  might  be  born  to  him  during  the  time  of 
this  stipulation ;  and  the  children  so  born  would  be  the  n-a 
TV?,  the  born  of  the  house  of  his  master,  or  nra  rsa,  the  sons 
of  the  house.  But  from  this  contract  he  might  be  redeemed 
by  any  one  of  his  kin,  or  he  might  redeem  himself,  if  he  were 
able,  by  returning  a  just  proportion  of  the  price  of  his  sale, 
the  price  of  his  services ;  and  whether  redeemed  or  not,  the 

*  Kitto's  Cyclopaedia,  p.  774,  Serv-  The  admirable  article  from  which 

ants  of  Abraham :  "  In  no  single  in-  the   above    paragraph  is  extracted, 

stance  do  we  find  that  the  patriarchs  stands  in  marked  contrast  with  the 

either  gave  away  or  sold  their  serv-  mass  of  commentators  and  lexicogra- 

ants,  or  purchased  them  of  third  per-  phers  on  this  subject,  by  the  accuracy 

sons.    Abraham  had  servants  bought  with  which  it  marks  distinctions,  and 

with  money.    It  has  been  assumed  resists  the  falsehood  of  mere  assump- 

that  they  were  bought  of  third  par-  tions  in  the  place  of  facts,  and  the 

ties,  whereas,  there  is  no  proof  that  despotism  of  precedents  in  the  place 

this  was  the  case.     The  probability  is  of  principle  and  just  law.    It   was 

that  they  sold  themselves  to  the  pa-  .contributed    to   the  work    by  Rev. 

triarch  for  an  equivalent;  that  is  to  "William  "Wright,  M.  A.  and  LL.D., 

say,  they  entered  into  voluntary  en-  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  the  trans- 

gagements  to  serve  him  for  a  longer  lator  of  Seller's  Biblical  Hermeneu- 

or  shorter  period  of  time,  in  return  tics, 
for  the  money  advanced  them." 


136  ENGAGING  AS  SERVANTS. 

contract  should  be  binding  no  longer  than  up  to  the  period  of 
the  jubilee. 

In  the  case  of  the  household  of  Abraham,  the  phrase  in 
Genesis,  xvii.  12,  t)&3  ri-I?*?>  the  possession  or  purchase  of 
money,  is  qualified  with  reference  to  a,  stranger  only,  which  is 
not  of  thy  seed.  In  the  twenty-seventh  verse,  all  the  men  of 
Abraham's  house  are  designated  as  either  born  in  the  house  or 
bought  with  money  of  the  stranger.  They  were  all  circum- 
cised, at  the  commandment  of  God. 

But  Hebrew  servants  might  also  be  bought  with  money,  as 
in  Exodus,  xxi.  2  ;  Leviticus,  xxv.  47 ;  Deuteronomy,  xv.  12  ; 
Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  14. 

But  only  for  six  years  ordinarily  could  such  a  purchase  bind 
the  person  bought;  the  seventh  year  he  was  free.  Deuteronomy, 
xv.  12;  Exodus,  xxi.  2. 

He  might  sell  himself,  that  is,  sell  his  own  time  and  labor, 
for  six  years.  In  such  a  case,  as  when  a  master  sold  him, 
he  was  a  servant  bought  for  money,  and  distinct  from  the 
servant  born  in  the  house.  The  rule  was  the  same  for  men- 
servants  and  maid-servants. 

Supposing  him  to  have  been  a  married  man,  and  himself 
and  his  wife  sold,  and  that  during  their  six  years  of  servitude 
they  had  children  born  to  them,  then,  in  the  seventh  year,  all 
would  go  free.  Supposing  his  master  to  have  given  him  a 
wife,  if  a  Hebrew,  then  his  wife  could  not  be  retained  beyond 
the  period  of  her  six  years  of  servitude  by  law,  neither  her  sous 
nor  daughters.  But  yet,  on  comparison  of  Exodus,  xxi.  2-6, 
with  Leviticus,  xxv.  39-41  and  47-54,  and  Deuteronomy,  xv. 
12-18,  and  Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  14,  it  is  manifest  that  Hebrew 
servants,  husbands,  wives,  and  children,  might  be  retained 
under  certain  conditions,  until  the  year  of  jubilee,  in  servitude. 
Many  of  them,  in  such  cases,  Would  be  servants  born  in  the 
house,  sons  of  the  house;  yet,  even  then  and  thus,  no  master 
could  compel  them  to  serve  as  bond-servants,  but  they  were 
to  be  treated  as  hired  servants  and  sojourners.  If  a  man  with 


CONTRACTS   OF  SERVICE.  137 

a  household  already  thus  composed,  should  buy  a  Hebrew  serv- 
ant, and  give  him  a  wife  from  among  the  number  of  maid- 
servants that  were  already,  by  rightful  contract,  the  fixtures 
of  his  family  until  the  jubilee,  then  he  would  have  no  right,  if 
he  chose  to  go  out  free  at  the  end  of  his  six  years,  to  take  away 
his  wife  and  the  children  she  might  have  borne  him ;  but  they 
were  to  remain  until  the  jubilee ;  and,  if  he  chose  not  to  avail 
himself  of  this  legal  privilege  of  quitting  his  master's  residence 
and  service,  but  preferred  to  remain  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, the  sons  of  the  house,  then  he,  too,  must  remain  till  the 
jubilee.  He  could  not  quit,  after  making  this  choice,  at  the 
expiration  of  another  seven  years.  But  all  were  free  in  the 
year  of  jubilee,  men,  women,  and  children. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that,  while  the  servants  born  in  the  house 
might,  under  certain  conditions,  be  born  under  a  claim  of  con- 
tinued service  till  the  jubilee,  those  bought  with  money  could 
be  bound  only  for  a  period  of  six  years.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  master  was  obliged  by  law  to  treat  those  who  were  under 
servitude  until  the  jubilee  as  hired  servants,  giving  them  their 
stated  and  covenanted  wages.  The  question  then  comes  up  as 
to  the  specific  difference  between  bond,  or  rather  apprenticed, 
servants  and  hired  servants,  and  the  nature  of  their  respective 
treatment.  This  we  shall  have  occasion  to  examine  histori- 
cally, in  considering  the  successive  developments  of  the  law  ; 
but  much  light  may  be  gained  from  the  examination  of  the 
words. 

ARGUMENT  FROM  MOSES  TO  ABRAHAM. 

But,  before  considering  this,  we  have  to  ask  how  far  it  is 
safe  to  draw  conclusions  as  to  Abraham's  household,  from  the 
laws  made  for  his  posterity  more  than  four  hundred  years 
after  his  age.  The  gross  perversions  and  mistakes  made  by 
commentators  taking  the  state  of  things  in  modern  Egypt  and 
in  pagan  Rome,  in  the  horrid  prevalence  of  the  lowest  and 
most  universal  slave-life  and  manners,  and  carrying  that  pic- 
ture and  those  ideas  back  as  supposed  originals  and  illustra- 


138  PRINCIPLES   REVEALED. 

tions  of  the  servitude  in  the  time  and  even  the  household  of 
Abraham,  may  teach  us  the  necessity  of  caution.  Even  the 
words  coined  out  of  Roman  despotism  and  slave-customs  have 
been  taken  by  lexicographers  to  interpret  Hebrew  words  that 
had  no  such  meaning ;  and  hence  the  assumption  with  which 
-is?,  evedh,  and  SI»K  amah,  and  n»N— ja  ben-amah,  are  some- 
times rendered  by  mancipium,  verna,  and  slave,  when  there 
was  neither  Hebrew  word,  nor  personal  chattel  answering  to 
any  such  appellative. 

But  conclusions  and  illustrations  from  the  completed  theoc- 
racy and  system  of  Hebrew  law  and  life,  back  to  Abraham,  as 
chosen  and  instructed  for  its  beginning,  can  not  be  very  erro- 
neous. The  general  principles  upon  which  God  would  gov- 
ern and  train  the  Hebrew  nation  were  certainly  revealed  to 
Abraham,  along  with  the  great  covenant  that  separated  them 
from  the  heathen  world  as  a  peculiar  people,  and  the  ap- 
pointed seal  of  that  covenant,  in  the  rite  of  circumcision.  The 
application  of  that  rite  to  servants  as  well  as  masters,  and  to 
those  purchased  from  the  stranger  as  well  as  those  born  in 
the  house,  and  the  admission  of  all  to  the  privileges  of  the 
same  national  covenant,  was  a  remarkable  equalizing  interpo- 
sition, doing  away,  by  itself  alone,  most  of  the  injustice  and 
evil  of  the  system  of  slavery  as  it  came  to  exist  in  the  heathen 
world.  All  were  to  be  instructed  in  religion,  and  treated 
with  kindness.  According  to  the  nature  of  the  Divine  law  as 
revealed  to  Abraham,  Abraham  could  not,  if  obedient  to  God, 
treat  his  servants,  that  were  hired  of  the  stranger,  with  his 
money,  or  those  born  in  his  house,  whether  obtained  in  Egypt 
or  elsewhere,  according  to  the  principles  of  idolatry  and  servi- 
tude prevalent  in  the  countries  where  he  traveled  and  dwelt. 
When  they  came  into  his  household,  they  came  on  very  differ- 
ent principles,  and  under  very  different  regulations,  from 
those  of  the  system  of  an  irresponsible  despotism,  or  of  what 
we  call  slavery. 

There  is  really  no  such  thing  as  slavery  discoverable  in 


THE   ELDEST   SERVANT.  139 

Abraham's  household,  though  there  were  servants  that  had 
been  given  to  him  by  the  most  despotic  slaveholders  then  in 
the  world,  and  others  whose  services  were  obtained  with 
money,  of  races  of  strangers,  and  others,  doubtless,  who  were 
in  his  family  as  servants  for  a  stipulated  time.  But,  concern- 
ing his  administration  of  the  whole,  God  declares,  "  I  know 
him,  that  he  will  command  his  children  and  his  household 
after  him ;  and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord,  to  do  justice 
and  judgment,"  Genesis,  xviii.  19.  This  is  sufficient  proof  that 
there  never  was,  in  Abraham's  household,  that  thing  which 
the  Romans  called  mancipium,  nor  that  iniquitous  system 
which  in  modern  times  we  call  slavery.  His  was  a  system  of 
paternal  and  patriarchal  kindness,  instruction,  and  well-regu- 
lated service,  but  not  of  enforced  and  unpaid  servitude.  It 
was  a  system  of  generosity  and  confidence  on  one  side,  and 
of  free  and  affectionate  obedience  on  the  other.  It  was  nei- 
ther power  without  right,  nor  submission  without  willingness. 
There  were  no  fugitive  slave  laws,  nor  any  need  of  them,  nor 
do  we  find  traces  of  any  such  custom  as  that  of  training  hounds 
to  hunt  runaways.  It  is  manifest  that  a  confidence  almost 
unlimited  was  reposed  by  Abraham  in  the  faithfulness  and 
contentment  of  those  under  his  authority.  The  oldest  servant 
of  Abraham's  house,  who  ruled  over  all  that  he  had,  and  had 
been  trained  himself  under  the  influence  of  the  laws  and  man- 
ners of  hi»  household,  bears  witness,  by  his  own  character, 
to  the  nature  of  the  whole  system. 

This  man  was  called,  Genesis,  xxiv.  2,  Hrps  ^_t  '.*>»»,  his 
eldest  servant  of  his  house,  or,  his  servant,  the  elder  of  his 
house,  the  major-domo,  the  word  used  being  the  same  em- 
ployed to  designate  the  elders  of  Israel.  In  the  history  oi 
Jacob's  burial  (Genesis,  1.  7),  we  have  the  same  word  applied 
to  the  elders  of  Pharaoh's  house,  and  all  the  elders  of  the 
land  of  Egypt.  "  And  Joseph  went  u.p  to  bury  his  father ; 
and  with  him  went  up  all  the  servants  of  Pharaoh,  the 
elders  of  his  house,  and  all  the  elders  of  the  land  of  Egypt" — 


140  ABRAHAM'S  HEIR. 

'.rps  -tipt,  zikney  betJto,  and  S-?N  -»spt,  zikney  arets.  If  the 
elder  of  Abraham's  household  could  be  assumed  to  have  been 
a  slave,  because  he  is  designated  as  a  servant,  then  were  also 
the  elders  of  Pharaoh's  house,  and  all  the  elders  of  Egypt, 
all  the  men  in  authority,  the  aristocracy  and  the  princes,  by 
the  same  assumption,  slaves,  for  they  are  all  designated  as 
Pharaoh's  servants.  In  Genesis,  xv.  2,  this  eldest  servant  of 
Abraham  is  called  also  the  steward  of  his  house,  ^a"  j?»tt— ;s, 
ben-mesheJc  bethi,  the  son  of  possession  of  my  house,  for  so 
Gesenius  renders  it,  filius  possessionis,  possessor  of  my  house. 
This  steward  of  Abraham's  house  was  to  be  his  heir.  The 
Septnagint  renders  it  the  son  of  Mesek,  viog  M.KOEK,  as  being 
the  name  of  &  tribe  or  district  in  Syria,  whence  Dammesek, 
or  Damascus,  the  steward  of  my  house  is  this  Eliezer  of  Da- 
mascus. 

Others  again  derive  the  word  from  a  root  signifying  to 
wander  about,  to  make  excursions  in  search  of  something,  and 
so  translate  it  the  son  of  discursion,  that  is,  the  overseer,  or 
procurator  of  the  house.  But  any  interpretation  is  less  forced 
and  far-fetched  than  that  which  assumes  this  steward  and  heir 
of  Abraham's  house  to  have  been  a  slave,  without  a  solitary 
intimation  in  the  text  or  context  on  which  such  a  supposition 
can  be  built.  This  elder  servant  of  his  house  is  said  to  have 
ruled  over  all  that  he  had,  a  phrase  which  answers  very  well 
to  that  of  the  son  of  possession  ;  and  before  a  son  was  born 
to  Abraham,  this  eldest  servant  was  to  have  been  his  heir.  In 
like  manner,  we  find,  in  Ezekiel,  xlvi.  17,  an  intimation  of  a 
prince  giving  a  gift  of  his  inheritance  to  one  of  his  servants, 
to  be  his  to  the  year  of  jubilee  ;  and  it  would  be  a  monstrous 
conclusion  to  assume  from  this  that  this  servant  was  a  slave, 
and  that  it  was  the  custom  for  householders  in  Judea  to  be- 
stow their  inheritance  upon  their  favorite  slaves !  But  what 
will  not  prejudice  accomplish?  Not  only  has  it  been  assumed, 
from  this  one  place  in  the  historic  record  in  Genesis,  that  this 
servant  of  Abraham  was  a  slave,  but,  also,  that  assumption 


THE  ELDEST   SERVANT.  141 

being  settled,  another  has  been  drawn  from  that,  namely,  that 
we  may  gather  from  this,  that  in  those  days  it  was  the  custom, 
if  any  man  died  without  heirs,  his  estate  descended  to  the 
oldest  or  superior  slave  of  the  family !  No  other  proof  of 
any  such  supposed  custom  is  adverted  to ;  none  can  be  found ; 
there  is  no  ground  for  any  such  imagination ;  the  whole  is  a 
mere  pile  of  conjecture,  built  upon  an  assumption,  itself  en- 
tirely destitute  of  foundation,  entirely  false.  It,  therefore, 
serves  as  a  remarkable  example  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
idea  of  slavery  and  slaves  among  the  Hebrews,  and  especially 
in  the  households  of  the  patriarchs,  has  got  possession  of 
men's  minds,  has  been  admitted  into  books  of  lexicography 
and  commentary,  and  passed  unquestioned  for  indisputable 
fact  from  generation  to  generation.* 

The  arming  of  the  whole  multitude  of  Abraham's  servants, 
and  committing  to  their  steadiness  and  bravery  the  conduct 
of  a  war,  argues  for  them  all  a  participation  in  the  same  char- 

*  Havernick's  Introduction  to  the  the  fact  of  Abraham's  steward  being 

Pentateuch,  page  152.     And  Rosen-  his  intended  heir  is  said  to  disclose  a 

mucller,  in  the  note.     Havernick,  fol-  very  ancient  custom,  of  which  there 

lowing  Rosenmueller,  observes  that  had  been  no  previous  trace,  nor  after- 

the  verse  describing  Abraham's  stew-  wards  any  thing  corresponding  to  it, 

ard  "  discloses  a  very  ancient  custom,  the  custom  being  that  of  making  one's 

that  afterwards  had  nothing  corre-  slave  his  heir  I 

spending  to  it.  According  to  that,  Even  this  learned  and  admirable 
in  case  of  childlessness,  a  slave-  was  writer  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  eld- 
heir  ;  bat  the  slave  here  appears  est  servant  of  Abraham's  house  could 
under  the  very  peculiar  appellation  be  nothing  but  a  slave,  and  speaks  of 
of  the  son  of  possession  of  the  house,  him  as  such :  "  Rebekah  immediately 
referring  to  special  nomadic  rela-  resolved  to  go  with  the  slave;"  "the 
tions."  This  very  ancient  custom  is  religious  language  of  the  slave;"  quite 
inferred  by  Rosenmueller  from  the  regardless  as  to  any  question  of  mo- 
case  of  the  steward ;  and  then  from  rality,  indeed,  seemingly  unconscious 
that  inference  is  drawn  the  conclusion  of  there  being  any  such  question  in 
that  the  steward  was  a  slave,  accord-  regard  to  the  right  or  the  sinfulness 
ing  to  the  very  ancient  custom  dis-  of  holding  slaves.  A  great  number 
closed  by  his  being  the  heir  I  "What  of  just  such  instances  of  careless  and 
the  special  nomadic  relations  are,  the  groundless  assumptions  might  be  pre- 
learned  writer  does  not  state,  nor  is  sented. 
there  any  disclosure  of  them ;  but 


142  ORIGIN    OF    SLAVERY. 

acter,  and  the  enjoyment  of  a  freedom  among  them,  and  of 
privileges  and  blessings  so  great  and  valuable  under  their 
allegiance  to  Abraham,  that  he  could  repose  the  utmost  con- 
fidence in  that  allegiance,  and  in  their  contentment  under  his 
authority  and  service.  The  only  case  in  which  there  is  any 
intimation  of  oppression  or  severity  in  the  household,  is  on 
the  part  of  Sarah,  and  the  subject  of  it  takes  an  immediate 
opportunity  to  flee  from  such  oppression.  And  such  oppor- 
tunity, in  that  state  of  society,  was  open  to  all,  nor  were 
there,  in  the  sojournings  and  life  of  the  patriarchs,  any  of 
those  safeguards  of  law  and  State  power,  to  keep  down  the 
oppressed,  without  which  a  system  such  as  that  of  Roman  or 
of  modern  slavery  could  not  be  maintained  for  a  single  gen- 
eration. 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  slavery  grew  out  of 
idolatry,  and  in  its  perfection  was  one  of  the  last  and 
most  perfect  fruits  of  the  execrable  system  of  Egyptian 
and  of  Roman  paganism.  The  exalting  of  men  of  gigantic 
vice  and  ability  into  gods,  and  the  consequent  consecration 
of  tyrannic  power  as  a  celestial  attribute,  and  the  obedience 
of  its  instruments  to  its  despotism,  the  superstitious  de- 
basement of  the  soul  before  it,  and  the  necessity  of  slaves 
as  the  victims  and  tools  of  its  ambition  and  success,  very 
naturally  suggest  and  account  for  the  progress  and  fixture 
of  slavery  in  the  old  heathen  social  life.  Every  thing 
evil  and  abominable  grew,  in  such  society,  out  of  the 
bestial  and  oppressive  idolatrous  systems  into  which  men 
fell.  There  were  near  five  hundred  years  from  Abraham  to 
Moses,  during  which  the  idolatry  of  the  Egyptians  and  the 
Canaanites,  and  every  depraved  habit  along  with  it,  grew 
more  dreadful  and  inveterate.  It  was  a  prominent  article  of 
the  divine  law :  "  When  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  cast  out  the 
nations  from  before  thee,  take  heed  to  thyself  that  thou  in- 
quire not  after  their  gods,  saying,  How  did  these  nations 
serve  their  gods?  even  so  will  I  do  likewise.  Thou  shalt 


CLIMAX    OF    DEPKAVITT.  143 

not  do  so  unto  the  Lord  thy  God:  fbr  every  abomination 
which  he  hateth  have  they  done  unto  their  gods :  for  even 
their  sons  and  their  daughters  have  they  burnt  in  the  fire  to 
their  gods." 

The  consecration  of  a  race  to  slavery,  the  adoption  of  such 
inhumanity  and  injustice  to  be  perpetrated  from  generation 
to  generation,  would  be  worse  cruelty  by  far  than  the  pass- 
ing of  a  selected  number  of  children,  at  stated  times,  and 
in  idolatrous  festivals,  through  the  fire  to  Moloch.  No  one 
of  the  kingdoms  of  Satan  in  our  world  ever  began  with  the 
atrocity  of  slavery  as  a  fundamental  law.  If  this  sin  and  source 
of  misery,  this  security  for  the  violation  of  every  precept  in 
the  decalogue  and  every  principle  of  righteousness,  had  been 
enshrined  in  the  domestic  constitution  established  by  Abra- 
ham, the  scheme  would  have  outdone,  in  diabolic  malignity 
and  ingenuity,  any  form  of  evil  ever  contrived  by  the  father 
of  lies  and  fastened  on  posterity.  If  the  problem  had  been 
to  lay  the  foundations  and  provide  for  the  completion  of  the 
most  depraved  possible  society  on  earth,  instead  of  building 
up  a  social  kingdom  through  which  all  the  families  of  mankind 
might  be  blessed,  this  far-reaching,  infernal  purpose  could  not 
have  been  more  certainly  accomplished  than  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  human  slavery,  with  its  atrocious  code  of  law  and  cus- 
tom, as  the  most  perfect  system  of  the  social  state.* 

°  WARBURTON,   Divine    Legation,  impudently  avowed,  against  the  uni- 

B.  1.,  sec.  vl,  states  what  he  regarded  versal  voice  of  nature ;  an  impiety  in 

as  a  monstrosity  almost  incredible,  but  which  moral  virtue  is  represented  as 

which  is  renewed  among  us,  in  the  the  invention  of  knaves,  and  Christian 

elaborate  defence  of  slavery  as  just,  virtue  as  the    imposition  of  fools." 

and  right,  and  religious,  and  of  the  Compare  JAY'S    Hebrew    Servitude, 

highest  benefit  to  society ;  that  "  to  and  STROUD,  Slave  Code,  and  GOOD- 

the  lasting  opprobrium   of   our  age  ELL,  American  Slave  Laws,  with  GRO- 

and  country,  we  have  seen  a  writer  TIUS,  COKE,  GISBORNE  and  DYMOND, 

publicly  maintain  that  PRIVATE  VICES  on  the  principles  of  Natural  Law  and 

WERE  PUBLIC  BENEFITS.     An  unheard  Morality, 
of  impiety,  wickedly  advanced,  and 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

DIFFERENT  TRANSLATIONS  OF  THE  SAME  WORD  BY  OUR  ENGLISH  TRANSLATORS. — DIF- 
FERENCE BETWEEN  APPRENTICED  AND  HIRED  SERVANTS. — NEITHER  THE  APPREN- 
TICED SERVANT  NOB  THE  HIEELINO  COULD  UK  SLAVES. — COMPARISON  OF  VALUB 
BETWEEN  THE  APPRENTICED  AND  HIRED  SERVANT. — DESIGNATION  OF  SERVANTS  AS 
YOUNG  MEN. 

THE  general  term  for  servant,  is?,  evedh,  is  sometimes  ren- 
dered by  our  translators  servant  and  sometimes  bondman. 
The  translation,  bondman,  can  not  be  justified,  if  the  word  is 
meant  to  imply  slavery.  The  word  is  sometimes  used  with 
an  emphasis  of  oppression,  determined  by  reference  to  the  na- 
ture of  Egyptian  bondage,  which  was  the  ultimate  standard 
of  rigor,  cruelty,  and  tyranny.  Deuteronomy,  xv.  15 :  He- 
member  that  thou  icast  a  servant  (translated  in  our  English 
Bible  bondman)  in  Egypt,  t;iJ>,  an  evedh,  in  a  bondage  with- 
out  mitigation.  Thou  shalt  not  compel  thy  brother  to  serve 
as  such  a  servant.  For  they  are  my  servants,  which  I  brought 
forth  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt ;  they  shall  not  be  sold  as  serv- 
ants. Thou  shalt  not  rule  over  him  with  rigor,  but  shalt  fear 
thy  God.  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  42,  43  :  They  shall  not  be  sold 
as  servants  (translated  in  this  case  bondmen),  15?  i"T.£*j*3 
tnspfl?  &>,  not  with  the  sale  of  a  servant.  And  in  verse  forty- 
four  :  Of  the  heathen  shall  ye  buy  bondmen  and  bondmaids, 
rncso  i:=3>,  the  servant  and  the  maid-servant.  There  was  no 
separate  word  for  bond-servant,  no  word  for  slave.  There 
was  only  the  word  n^»,  evedh,  honorable  in  its  origin,  and 
free  in  its  original  meaning,  which  they  had  to  adopt  and 
use.  But  a  man  might  be  an  -pa?,  a  servant,  and  yet  be  a 
freeman.  It  is  not  the  term,  therefore,  but  the  context,  that 


THE    HIRED    SERVANT.  145 

limits  and  particularizes  the  signification.  In  2  Kings,  iv.  1 : 
"  The  creditor  is  come  to  take  my  two  sons  to  be  (in  our 
translation)  bondmen,"  that  is,  o^asV,  to  be  for  servants, 
but  not  bondmen;  for  by  law,  being  Hebrews,  they  could  not 
be  sold  as  bondmen,  though  they  might  be  taken  as  servants, 
at  a  valuation  of  their  time  and  labor,  for  the  term  of  six 
years,  for  payment  of  the  debt,  to  work  out  the  debt.  But 
if  that  did  not  suffice,  but  they  must  be  held  longer,  then  it 
was  not  lawful  to  hold  them  as  bondmen,  but  as  hired  serv- 
ants. See  the  law,  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  40:  "If  thy  brother 
that  dwelleth  by  thee  be  waxen  poor,  and  be  sold  unto  thee, 
thou  shalt  not  compel  him  to  serve  as  a  bond-.servant ;  but  as 
a  hired  servant,  and  a  sojourner  he  shall  be  with  thee."  Not 
as  nay,  evedh,  but  as  *v>5te,  sakir.  Thou  shalt  not  compel  him 
to  serve  as  a  bond-servant,  tas  m'a*  l.a  nhsn— «&.  Thou  shalt 
not  task  upon  him  the  tasking  of  a  servant. 

The  service  of  the  bond-servant  thus  designated  was  fre- 
quently compared,  for  illustration,  with  the  servitude  endured 
by  the  Israelites  in  Egypt.  This  was  despotic,  and  without 
wages,  without  stipulated  reward ;  no  agreement  or  bargain 
between  master  and  servant,  but  the  latter  forced  into  the 
service  and  under  the  rule  of  the  former ;  a  degradation  and 
a  yoke,  under  which  no  right  of  a  freeman  could  be  asserted. 
See  Leviticus,  xxvi.  13;  Deuteronomy,  xvi.  12;  xxiv.  18-22  ; 
xxvi.  6 ;  xxviii.  68.  It  was  the  bondage  endured  by  the  Jews 
in  their  captivity,  Ezra,  ix.  9 ;  Nehemiah,  v.  8.  It  was  the 
bondage  into  which  Joseph  was  sold,  Genesis,  xxxvii.  28,  36, 
and  Psalm  cv.  17.  Various  legal  privileges,  to  which  even 
the  lowest  class  of  servants  among  the  Hebrews  were  enti- 
tled, and  various  limitary  statutes,  controlling  the  system  of 
servitude,  made  it  impossible  for  the  Hebrews  to  impose  the 
same  despotic  slavery  upon  others.  They  could  not  rule  over 
the  servants  obtained  from  the  heathen  with  the  same  unlim- 
ited authority  with  which  the  heathen  ruled  over  their  own 
slaves.  Both  the  Hebrew  servants  and  the  servants  "  bought 

7 


146  THE    HIKED    SERVANT. 

with  money  of  the  stranger,"  were  under  protection  of  the 
same  laws  against  cruelty,  and  were  in  the  same  relation  to 
the  Church  by  circumcision,  and  entitled  to  their  rights  in  all 
the  religious  festivals  and  privileges  of  instruction  and  of 
worship.  The  Sabbath,  and  also  the  Sabbatical  year  of  rest, 
was  theirs  as  well  as  their  master's ;  and,  as  we  shall  see,  the 
recurrence  of  jubilee  was  a  limit  beyond  which  no  form  or 
period  of  bondage  could  in  any  case  be  continued. 

HEBREW    TERM    FOR    HIRED     SERVANT. 

The  Hebrew  term  for  hired  servant,  n^b,  sakir,  the  hire- 
ling, is  from  the  verb  ->5»,  sakar,  to  hire.  Leviticus,  xix.  13, 
the  wages  of  him  that  is  hired,  •vs'-p,  sakir. — Exodus,  xxii.  15, 
of  a  person  who  has  hired  himself  out  with  his  ox  or  ass,  or  im- 
plement of  husbandry,  if  he  were  a  hireling,  T»sb— ns.  So  in 
Exodus,  xii.  45,  a  hired  servant,  T>sb,  sakir /  also,  Leviticus, 
xxii.  16,  a  hired  servant  of  the  priest;  also  Leviticus,  xxv.  40, 
50,  53.  In  Isaiah,  xvi.  14,  we  have  an  illustrative  passage  : 
"Within  three  years,  as  the  years  of  an  hireling  "P5»  ISBSJ, 
sakir;  also  Isaiah,  xxi.  16 :  Within  a  year,  according  to  the  years 
of  an  hireling,  n^sto  iscs,  computed  as  the  years  of  a  servant 
hired  by  the  year  are  computed.  But  the  'V'sy,  sakir,  the 
hired  servant,  might  be  hired  by  the  day,  while  the  ordinary 
servant,  the  "15*  evedh,  had  no  such  compensation,  having 
been  apprenticed  or  hired  for  six  years.  Job,  vii.  2 :  As  a 
servant,  15?,  evedh,  earnestly  desireth  the  shadow,  and  as  an 
hireling,  •V't'w,  sakir,  looketh  for  his  wages.  Here  the  con- 
trast between  the  two  words  and  their  respective  significa- 
tion is  marked.  The  la?,  evedh,  the  ordinary  servant,  looks 
for  no  wages  at  the  end  of  the  day,  but  longs  for  the  evening, 
and  for  rest,  or  for  a  shadow  from  the  sun,  and  for  some  relief 
from  his  toil ;  but  the  hired  servant,  i^sb,  sakir,  looks  for  the 
reward  of  his  work,  according  to  the  law  in  Leviticus,  xix.  13. 
So,  likewise,  Job,  xiv.  6,  that  he  may  accomplish,  as  an  hire- 
ling, his  day,  "vstes. 


THE    HIKED    SERVANT.  147 

Now  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  word  15?,  evedh,  is  never 
used  in  conjunction  with  any  adjective  to  signify  a  hired  serv- 
ant ;  for  the  n^Jj,  evedh,  the  servant,  was  one  whose  whole 
services  were  purchased  at  the  outset  for  a  specified  time, 
longer  or  shorter,  as  the  case  might  be,  from  himself,  or  from 
some  one  to  whom  for  such  a  time  he  owed  those  services ; 
it  might  be  for  a  term  of  years,  it  might  be  till  the  jubilee. 
It  is  quite  clear  that  the  distinctive  signification  of  n?jj>,  evedh, 
excluded  the  idea  of  daily  wages.  In  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  49, 
the  particular  difference  between  the  ordinary  servant  and 
the  hired  servant  is  legally  drawn  out :  "  If  thy  brother  that 
dwelleth  by  thee  be  waxen  poor,  and  be  sold  unto  thee,  thou 
shalt  not  compel  him  to  serve  as  na»,  evedh  j  but  as  an  hired 
servant  and  as  a  sojourner  shall  he  be  with  thee."  The  spe- 
cific word  n^b,  sakir,  is  used ;  thou  shalt  not  compel  him  to 
serve  as  an  is?,  evedh  /  but  as  a  -vsto,  saJtir,  and  a  sojourner  shall 
he  be  with  thee.  The  point  in  view  evidently  is  this ;  thou  shalt 
not  treat  him  as  a  servant  of  all  work,  bound  to  thee  irrevoc- 
ably by  his  apprenticeship,  but  as  a  hireling  who  can  leave  at  any 
time,  on  giving  notice.  Yet  this  is  spoken  of  one  who  is  sold,  one 
who  is  bought  with  money.  The  buying  with  money  did  not 
imply  ownership,  did  not  render  consequent  or  extant  the  con- 
dition which  we  call  slavery :  this  is  perfectly  clear.  All  the 
Hebrew  servants  so  bought  were  merely  servants  bound  out 
for  a  term  of  years,  and  if  longer  than  six  years,  then  to  be 
treated  as  hired  servants,  not  as  bond-servants.  So  in  Exo- 
dus, xxi.  7,  where  it  is  said,  If  a  man  sell  his  daughter,  the 
thing  signified  is  merely  a  six  years'  contract  for  her  services ; 
her  service  for  six  years  is  sold  for  so  much. 

A  Hebrew  might  sell  himself  to  a  stranger,  sojourner,  or 
alien  in  Israel,  or  to  the  stock  of  the  stranger's  family,  to  the 
heir,  for  an  unlimited  time,  that  is,  for  the  period  of  time 
from  the  making  of  the  bargain  to  the  jubilee.  But  this  sale 
had  two  conditions  :  first,  he  was  to  be  with  his  master  "  as  a 
yearly  hired  servant,"  nsi-a  n:»  ">"5»5,  Leviticus,  xxv.  53,  as  a 


148  THE    HIEED    SERVAKT. 

hireling  from  year  to  year,  or  year  by  year ;  second,  he  conld 
at  any  time  be  redeemed,  that  is,  could  buy  back  his  own 
time,  or  have  it  bought  back  for  him;  and  his  owner  was 
compelled  to  grant  the  redemption  and  take  the  money. 
The  price  of  redemption  was  reckoned  from  the  year  that 
he  was  sold  to  the  year  of  jubilee,  so  much  a  year,  accord- 
ing to  the  price  and  time  of  a  yearly  hired  servant.  If 
more  years  remained  to  the  jubilee,  a  greater  price,  if  fewer 
a  less  price,  was  to  be  paid  for  his  own  time.  If  not  re- 
deemed, he  and  all  his  family  were  to  be  free  at  any  rate  in 
the  year  of  jubilee;  and  meanwhile  he  was  to  receive  wages 
as  a  yearly  hired  servant,  a  i>|5»,  sakir,  and  not  an  t??> ,  evedh. 
It  is  added  that  his  master  shall  not  rule  with  rigor  over  him. 
And  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  46,  when  it  is  enacted  that  the  servants 
of  the  Hebrews  may  be  purchased  of  the  strangers  or  the  fami- 
lies of  strangers,  the  heathen  or  their  descendants  in  the  land, 
it  was  added,  "  but  over  your  brethren,  the  children  of  Israel, 
ye  shall  not  rule,  one  over  another,  with  rigor."  The  rigor- 
ous rule,  as  contrasted  with  the  lenient  rule  over  hired  serv- 
ants, consisted  partly  in  the  very  fact  of  their  being  botmd. 
to  serve  the  whole  six  years,  or  the  whole  time  for  which 
they  had  apprenticed  themselves,  for  the  sum  paid  for  such 
apprenticeship,  without  being  entitled  to  receive  any  other 
wages,  either  daily,  weekly,  or  yearly.  This  was  the  grand 
difference  between  the  -ny  and  "v»tto. 

•  T 

There  were  other  differences  by  statute,  as  described  in 
Exodus,  xii.  43-45,  and  Leviticus,  xxii.  10,  11.  No  uncir- 
cumcised  stranger  or  foreigner,  nor  any  man's  hired  servant, 
might  eat  of  the  passover.  But  the  servant  bought  for  money 
might  eat  thereof  when  circumcised.  It  was  a  household  or- 
dinance, to  be  observed  by  families,  as  well  as  national.  The 
home-born  servants  were  regarded  in  this  respect  as  belong- 
ing to  the  family,  but  the  hired  servants  not.  Yet  this  could 
not  have  been  intended  to  operate  to  the  exclusion  of  hired 
servants,  under  all  circumstances,  from  the  passover ;  it  may 


DIFFERENT    PBICES.  149 

mean  hired  servants  un circumcised.  Certainly  Hebrews  them- 
selves were  sometimes  in  the  state  of  hired  servants,  and  could 
not  have  been  excluded.  But  again,  in  the  priest's  family, 
Leviticus,  xxii.  10,  11,  while  the  servant  bought  with  money, 
or  born  in  the  house,  was  permitted  to  partake  of  the  holy 
things,  the  hired  servant  was  forbidden,  was  not  regarded  as 
belonging  to  the  priest's  household. 

DIFFERENCE   IN   VALUE. 

In  Deuteronomy,  xv.  18,  there  is  a  computation  of  the  com- 
parative worth  of  a  servant,  1-3,  evedh,  and  the  hired  servant, 
nisto,  sakir.  "  The  Hebrew  servant,  serving  thee  six  years  by 
sale,  hath  been  worth  a,  double  hired  servant  to  thee  in  serviny 
thee  six  years  /"  or  perhaps  it  means,  duplicate  the  wages  of 
a  hired  servant  for  six  years ;  that  is,  if  you  had  kept  a  hired 
servant  for  six  years,  by  yearly  wages,  it  would  have  cost  you 
double  the  price  you  have  paid  for  the  six  years'  Hebrew 
servant.  The  servant  bought  for  six  years  you  had  no  yearly 
wages  to  pay,  but  the  hired  servant  you  must  pay  by  the 
year.  On  this  account,  when  the  Hebrew  servant  was  set  free 
at  the  end  of  his  six  years'  service,  the  master  was  by  law  en- 
joined to  give  him  a  parting  gift ;  was  not  permitted  to  send 
him  away  empty,  but  was  "  bound  to  furnish  him  liberally  out 
of  the  flock,  the  floor,  and  the  wine-press."  It  was  an  outfit, 
intended  in  some  measure  to  supply  to  him  the  absence  of 
yearly  wages.  Deuteronomy,  xv.  13,  14. 

From  all  this  it  appears  that,  so  far  as  the  Hebrew  servant 
was  an  la?,  evedh,  he  was  such  only  for  the  term  of  six  years, 
an  las,  evedh,  for  the  whole  term,  without  daily  wages;  but 
if  in  longer  servitude,  then  he  was  an  T>5to  na»,  evedh  sakir ,  a 
servant,  an  hireling,  a  servant  on  wages.  The  mere  nas  was 
ordinarily  the  servant  bought  for  money,  and  was  considered 
as  bound  to  pay,  by  his  labor,  for  the  sum  of  money  given  as 
the  purchase  of  his  whole  time.  If  the  master  had  to  pay  him 
yearly  or  daily  wages  in  addition,  then  the  servant  bought 


150  YOUNG    MEN    AS    SERVANTS. 

with  his  money  would  have  cost  him  much  more  than  the 
hired  laborer.  It  was  the  difference  between  a  six  years'  ap- 
prenticeship, and  a  six  years'  service  on  daily,  weekly,  or 
yearly  wages. 

Such  were  the  relations  between  master  and  servant  in  the 
Hebrew  household  four  or  five  hundred  years  after  the  time 
of  Abraham.  Such  was  the  system  of  servitude  as  regulated 
by  law,  to  which  God's  regulations  with  Abraham,  in  the 
founding  of  the  Hebrew  nation  and  policy,  looked  forward. 
Abraham,  five  hundred  years  before  the  operation  of  the 
Mosaic  statutes,  had  servants  that  were  born  in  his  house, 
servants  that  were  given  him,  and  servants  that  were  bought 
with  his  money.  They  were  all  circumcised  and  instructed  ; 
and  his  children  and  his  household  were  to  keep  the  way  of 
the  Lord,  to  do  justice  and  judgment.  God's  testimony  to 
Isaac  concerning  Abraham,  after  his  death,  was  this  :  "  be- 
cause that  Abraham  obeyed  my  voice,  and  kept  my  charge, 
my  commandments,  my  statutes,  and  my  laws."  Genesis, 
xxvi.  5.  There  were  men  in  Abraham's  house,  born  in  his 
house,  and  there  were  those  bought  with  money  of  the 
stranger ;  they  were  all  circumcised  along  with  Ishmael  his 
son,  and  formed  one  and  the  same  religious  family. 

DESIGNATION    OF    SERVANTS    AS    YOUNG  MEN. 

It  is  in  Abraham's  household  that  we  first  find  mention  of 
servants  under  the  form  "»s,  naar,  a  young  man,  Genesis,  xviii.  7. 
This  designation  is  repeated  in  Genesis,  xxii.  3,  5,  19,  where 
Abraham's  young  men  accompanied  himself  and  Isaac  to  the 
mount  of  the  appointed  sacrifice.  They  were  employed  in 
menial  services,  though  the  word  does  not  necessarily  mean 
servants,  and  Isaac  himself  is  called  by  the  same  designation, 
rendered  in  his  case  lad.  Indeed,  the  generic  signification  is 
lad,  or  boy,  while  it  is  often  applied  to  designate  servants,  as 
also  is  the  feminine  of  1*5  applied  to  a  maid-servant.  Thus 
we  find  Abraham,  on  these  two  important  occasions,  person- 


YOITNG    MEN    AS    SERVANTS.  151 

ally  waited  on  (as  also  his  illustrious  guests)  by  his  young 
men,  f*"yn. 

There  is  the  same  usage  in  the  following  instances:  2  Kings, 
iv.  22,  24,  used  to  designate  the  servants  of  the  Shunamite, 
and  verse  25,  applied  to  Gehazi,  the  servant  of  Elijah.  Also, 
v.  20  and  viii.  4.  In  2  Kings,  vi.  15,  it  is  one  of  two  terms 
applied  to  designate  the  servant  of  Elisha,  the  first  from  the 
verb  r^v,  to  serve,  to  minister,  and  the  second,  n?$,  as  also  in 
verse  17.  In  1  Kings,  xix.  3,  Elijah  left  his  servant  at  Beer- 
sheba,  'ii»3.  It  is  used  also  in  1  Kings,  xx.  14,  15,  17,  19,  and 
in  like  manner  in  2  Kings,  xix.  6.  The  same  designation  is 
applied  in  Nehemiah,  iv.  16,  22,  23,  and  v.  15,  16,  and  vi.  5. 
It  is  applied  to  ISTehemiah's  servants,  the  people's,  Sanballat's, 
and  the  former  governor's  servants.  But  in  the  same  his- 
tory, Tobiah,  the  servant,  the  Ammonite,  is  designated  with 
intended  contempt  as  the  ia»,  probably  a  runaway  slave  of 
the  heathen,  though  he  was  the  son-in-law  of  Shechaniah,  the 
son  of  Arab.  Nehemiah,  ii.  10,  19,  and  vi.  18,  and  xiii.  19. 
In  Numbers,  xxii.  22,  the  term  i?s,  is  applied  to  the  two  serv- 
ants of  Balaam. 

After  the  overthrow  of  Sodom,  Abraham  sojourned  in 
Gerar,  and  there  Abimelech  took  sheep,  and  oxen,  and  men- 
servants  and  women-servants,  nhfi*»i  tj^as?,  and  gave  to  Abra- 
ham, Genesis,  xx.  14.  And  all  that  Abraham  had,  he  gave 
unto  Isaac,  flocks  and  herds,  and  silver  and  gold,  and  men- 
servants  and  maid-servants,  and  camels  and  asses,  Genesis, 
xxiv.  35,  36,  and  xxv.  5.  After  the  death  of  Abraham  we 
find  Isaac  dwelling  in  Gerar,  under  the  divine  blessing,  so 
that  he  had  possession  of  flocks,  and  possession  of  herds, 
and  great  store  of  servants,  nan  n<ias;\,  Genesis,  xxvi.  14. 
Precisely  the  same  words  are  used  of  Job,  that  he  had  a  very 
great  household,  nan  max,  the  whole  body  of  domestics  and 
dependents,  Job,  i.  3. 

But  the  servants  are  here  called,  as  in  Genesis,  xxii.  3,  and 
other  places  referred  to  above,  young  men,  D^sfin,  Job,  i.  15-17, 


152  YOUNG    MEN    AS    SERVANTS. 

three  times:  first,  the  servants  are  slain;  second,  the  sheep  and 
the  servants  are  consumed ;  third,  the  camels  are  carried  away 

and  the  servants  slain  by  the  Chaldeans.     These  oi-j»5  were 
•  •  T. 

certainly  a  part  of  the  great  household,  the  ";3?.,  the  domes- 
tics and  servants  of  Job.  But  in  the  nineteenth  verse  the 
same  word  is  used  to  describe  Job's  own  sons  as  destroyed  in 
the  falling  of  the  house ;  they,  too,  are  called  the  young  men, 
c^.ysri.  In  Job,  xli.  5,  the  feminine  plural  is  used  for  maidens : 
Wilt  thou  bind  him  for  thy  maidens?  ip^n?.;^. 

This  peculiar  usage  prevails  in  Judges,  Ruth,  and  the  first 
book  of  Samuel.  Judges,  vii.  10,  11 :  Phurah,  the  servant  of 
Gideon,  "irs,  naar.  Judges,  xix.  3  :  His  servant  with  him,  and 
a  couple  of  asses,  Vn?;,  naar.  Judges,  xix.  9,  11,  13,  19:  The 
master  to  the  servant,  and  the  servant  to  the  master,  the  dis- 
tinction being  that  of  vsns  and  '.nss,  naar.  Ruth,  ii.  5,  6 : 
Boaz  to  his  servant  over  the  reapers,  his  young  men,  'TissV, 
naar.  Also  ii.  9,  15,  21.  The  feminine  of  the  same  word 
in  this  book  is  used  for  maidens,  as  ii.  8,  my  maidens,  •>»;-.?.5. 
Ruth,  ii.  22,  23,  the  maidens  of  Boaz.  It  is  the  servants  of 
Boaz  that  are  thus  designated,  and  Ruth  calls  them,  in  ii.  13, 
handmaidens,  ^hso,  shiphhah.  The  young  men  and  the  maid- 
ens, as  servants  to  Boaz,  were  at  work  in  his  fields,  and  Ruth 
gleaned  among  them  and  after  them.  In  this  book,  the  word 
13?.,  evedh,  for  servant,  is  not  once  employed ;  an  indication 
that  there  was  no  approximation  to  slavery  known  in  the 
household  of  Boaz,  though  he  was  a  mighty  man  of  wealth  of 
the  family  of  Elimelech. 

In  1  Samuel,  ix.  3,  5,  8,  7,  22,  27,  and  x.  14,  there  is  the 
same  usage.  Kish  said  to  Saul,  take  now  one  of  the  servants, 
fi^fi.™,  naar,  with  thee,  and  seek  the  asses.  Then  said  Saul 
to  his  servant,  "nss,  naar,  and  so  repeatedly.  The  same  usage 
in  reference  to  maidens  employed  in  drawing  water ;  in  ix.  1 1, 
they  are  called  nVis:.  And  so  in  1  Samuel,  ii.  13,  15,  the 
masculine  of  the  same  noun  is  used  for  the  priest's  servant, 
w,  naar. 


THE    SERYANT    OF    SAUL.  153 

In  1  Samuel,  xxx.  13,  the  word  is  used  as  follows:  a  young 
man  (n?s,  naar)  of  Egypt,  servant  (i?y,  eved/i)  to  an  Amalek- 
ite.  In  2  Samuel,  ix.  2,  compared  with  ix.  9,  10,  and  xvi.  1, 
and  xix.  17,  the  terms  is.'*,  evedh,  and  i?3,  naar,  are  applied  to 
the  same  person,  Ziba,  of  the  house  of  Saul ;  and  a  close  ex- 
amination of  the  passages  indicates  the  condition  signified  to 
be  quite  different  from  any  thing  implied  in  the  appellation  of 
slave.  Ziba  is  first  called  a  servant,  ^9,  evedh,  of  the  house 
of  Saul,  and  then  he  is  named  the  iss,  naar,  of  the  house  of 
Saul,  with  twenty  servants,  Q^ay,  evedh,  under  him,  in  his  own 
house,  and  all  that  dwelt  in  the  house  of  Ziba  were  servants, 
Q^a*,  evedh,  unto  Mephibosheth.  2  Samuel,  ix.  9 :  "  The  king 
called  to  Ziba,  Saul's  servant,  •>?;,  naar,  and  said  unto  him,  I 
have  given  unto  thy  master's  son  all  that  pertained  to  Saul, 
and  to  all  his  house.  Thou,  therefore,  and  thy  sons,  and  thy 
servants,  T^a?.,  evedh,  shall  till  the  land  for  him."  2  Samuel, 
xvi.  1 :  Ziba  is  called  the  servant,  -w$,  naar,  of  Mephibosheth, 
and  meets  King  David  with  provisions.  2  Samuel,  xix.  17: 
Again  he  is  called  Ziba,  the  servant  of  the  house  of  Saul, 
V.Na  n^a  nys,  naar,  the  young  man  of  the  house  of  Saul. 
Very  evidently,  Ziba  was  an  officer  of  some  importance  in 
Saul's  household,  but  it  is  equally  clear  that  he  was  not  a 
slave,  though  called  both  the  Tay,  evedh,  and  the  125,  naar 
of  his  master  the  king.  The  naarism  may  have  been  a  form 
of  service,  more  honorable,  and  of  a  higher  grade,  than  the 
evedhism.  The  indication,  wherever  ">?5,  naar,  is  employed, 
is  certainly  that  of  free  service,  and  not  bond-service. 

For  the  present,  we  stop  in  our  investigation  with  the 
Abrahamic  period.  From  the  survey  of  this  period,  as  it  lies 
in  the  Scriptures,  we  find  no  trace  whatever  of  the  existence 
of  slavery,  except  among  idolatrous  and  despotic  nations. 
There  is  no  proof  that  it  ever  existed  in  the  household  of 
Abraham.  There  is  evidence  of  the  revealed  judgment  of 
God  against  it.  God's  description  to  Abraham  of  the  bondage 
which  his  seed  should  be  compelled  to  undergo  in  Egypt,  was 

7* 


154  JUDGMENT    AGAINST    SLAVEET. 

a  reprobation  of  involuntary  unpaid  servitude,  as  a  crime  on 
the  part  of  those  who  enforced  it.  The  nation  whom  they 
serve  will  I  judge.  Know  of  a  surety  that  thy  seed  shall 
serve  them,  and  they  shall  afflict  them.  The  sentence  is  as 
clearly  condemnatory  as  if  God  had  said,  They  will  be  guilty 
of  great  and  cruel  oppression,  and  for  the  crime  of  such  op- 
pression I  will  punish  them.  Is  it  possible  to  conceive  that 
the  individual,  with  an  enlightened  moral  sense,  to  whom  this 
revelation  was  made,  could  himself,  as  the  head  and  founder 
of  a  social  race  and  system,  establish  in  his  own  family  and 
nation  the  same  reprobated  state  of  enforced,  unpaid,  involun- 
tary servitude  ?  Could  Abraham  make  another  seed  his  prey 
and  property,  by  the  same  spoliation  and  affliction  denounced 
of  God  as  a  crime  to  be  punished,  when  inflicted  on  his  own 
seed  ?  The  crime  of  the  Egyptians  against  the  Hebrews  was 
the  enslaving  of  them,  and  treating  them  as  slaves.  The  en- 
slaving of  others,  and  treating  them  as  slaves,  would  be  the 
same  crime  in  Abraham ;  it  would  be  the  founding  of  the 
same  system  of  oppression  and  cruelty,  which  God  plainly  in- 
formed Abraham  was  wrong.* 

*  Antiquities  of  Egypt.     The  Fu-  have  defrauded  no  man ;  I  have  not 

ture  State,  155.  slaughtered  the  cattle  of  the  gods ;  I 

It  has  been  questioned  by  some  have  not  prevaricated  at  the  seat  of 
writers  whether  slavery  existed  in  justice;  I  have  not  made  slaves  of  the 
Egypt  under  what  is  called  the  the-  Egyptians ;  I  have  not  defiled  my 
ocracy  in  that  country ;  and  the  evi-  conscience  for  the  sake  of  my  supe« 
dences  of  slavery,  in  the  laws  cited  rior ;  I  have  not  used  violence ;  I 
by  Diodorus,  are  referred  to  a  period  have  not  famished  my  household ;  I 
very  much  later  than  that  of  Abra-  have  not  made  to  weep ;  I  have  not 
ham.  That  the  Egyptians  did  not  smitten  privily;  I  have  not  changed 
make  slaves  of  their  own  country-  the  measures  of  Egypt;  I  have  not 
men,  and  that  the  doing  of  this  was  grieved  the  spirits  of  the  gods ;  I  have 
regarded  as  a  crime  of  the  greatest  not  committed  adultery,"  etc. 
magnitude,  is  manifest  from  their  own  The  enumeration  of  slave-making 
records.  From  the  Egyptian  ritual  as  among  the  greatest  crimes  is  re- 
pictures  in  the  British  Museum  there  markable.  It  is  hardly  to  be  sup- 
is  gathered  the  following  address  of  posed  that  the  conscience  of  Abra- 
the  departed  soul  before  Osiris,  on  en-  ham,  enlightened  by  divine  revela- 
tering  the  Hall  of  Judgment :  "  I  tion,  would  permit  him  to  maintain 


JUDGMENT    AGAINST    SLAVERY.  155 

Even  when,  in  the  execution  of  God's  judgments  against 
the  heathen  nations  expelled  from  the  promised  land,  the  He- 
brews were  commanded  to  put  the  remnant  of  those  nations 
to  tribute  and  service,  they  were  forbidden  to  treat  them  as 
they  themselves  had  been  treated  in  Egypt.  The  system  of 
servitude  under  which  they  were  to  be  brought,  was  hemmed 
in  and  restricted  by  such  legal  limitations  and  periodical  clos- 
ures, that  what  we  call  slavery  could  not  grow  out  of  it,  but 
would,  on  the  contrary,  be  abolished  by  it.  It  is  impossible  that 
the  system  which  God  thus  predestinated  to  abhorrence,  as  a 
system  of  iniquity,  could  at  the  same  time  be  set  in  the  house- 
hold and  line  of  the  patriarch  as  an  example  and  model  of  so- 
cial and  domestic  life.  There  must  be  positive  proof  of  the 
most  unquestionable  clearness,  before  we  can  admit  the  exist- 
ence of  such  an  anomaly;  but  no  proof  is  found.  It  is  no 
proof  to  take  assumptions  from  the  existence  and  nature  of 
slavery  in  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  or  in  modern  ages,  and 
carry  them  back  to  the  foundation  of  the  patriarchal  society, 
and  force  them  there,  as  a  supposititious  conclusion  in  regard 
to  that  society.  It  is  no  proof  to  take  from  modern  times  and 
languages  a  name,  a  term,  of  which  there  is  no  trace  in  the 
Hebrew  tongue,  and  apply  it  to  Hebrew  usages  that  have  no 
reality  corresponding  to  it,  and  then,  notwithstanding  all  this, 
draw  from  such  application  of  the  term  an  opinion  that  the 
thing  itself  existed.  Strange  to  say,  this  has  been  the  cas» 
with  not  a  few  commentators,  almost  without  reflection,  wit!-, 
not  the  slightest  examination  of  the  question ;  so  that  w 
find  the  term  slave  most  carelessly,  incongruously,  aa-a 
ground! essly  applied,  even  in  books  and  essays  assuming  «o 
be  critical. 

If  we  could  suppose  a  species  of  upas-apple  to  have  been 
grafted  on  the  antique  olive-tree,  so  that  from  the  time  of 

as  a  habit,  what  even  the  natural    ians,  taught  thorn  to  consider  as  an 
conscience,  and  tho  remnant  of  relig-    oppression  and  a  crime, 
ious  knowledge  among  the   Egypt- 


156 


THE    OLIVE    AND    THE    UPAS. 


Julius  Caesar  down  to  this  day  the  most  ordinary  fruit  of  the 
olive  should  be  a  bitter,  oily,  poisonous  apple,  used  for  the 
purpose  of  intoxication  and  intemperance,  it  would  certainly 
be  a  somewhat  serious  error  to  assume  the  existence  and  use 
of  this  artificial  corruption  of  the  olive  in  the  land  of  Palestine 
in  the  time  of  Joshua  and  the  Judges.  If  this  modern  per- 
verted fruit  had  its  own  peculiar  name,  it  would  be  an  extra- 
ordinary stupidity  or  willful  perversion,  for  any  lexicographer 
or  commentator  to  call  the  fruit  of  the  oriental  antique  olive  by 
that  name.  And  it  would  be  a  most  disastrous  and  absurd 
confusion  to  carry  in  our  minds  the  idea  of  that  poisonous  and 
vicious  modern  invention,  when  reading  of  the  habitual  use  of 
the  olive  as  a  native  and  most  precious  production  of  the  Holy 
Land,  one  of  the  most  gracious  gifts  of  God  to  its  inhabitants. 
But  even  this  would  be  not  more  absurd  than  for  us  to  carry 
the  name  or  the  idea  of  slavery  back  to  the  household  life  of 
Abraham.* 


*  SAALSCHTTTZ.  Das  Mosaische  Recht. 
Laws  of  Moses,  Vol.  II.,  note  on  sec. 
xii.,  p.  714.  SAALSCHUTZ  corrects 
MICHAELIS,  and  affirms  that  he  had 
brought  in  a  most  pernicious  mistake 
in  giving  the  general  title  of  bondage 
or  slavery  to  the  system  of  Jewish 
service.  Referring  to  instances  in 
proof  of  this  error,  "  With  what  jus- 
tice," he  asks,  "  could  the  appellation 
of  Leibegenschafi,  servDe  thraldom,  or 
slavery,  be  applied  to  such  a  system  ? 
Servants  that  were  free  by  law  in  the 
seventh  year,  and  universally  in  the 
year  of  jubilee,  could  not  be  called 
slaves ;  they  were  in  no  sense  such. 
With  what  propriety  or  justice  can  any 
or  all  these  classes  of  servants  be 
called  bondsmen  or  slaves  ?" 

Compare  GRAVES,  on  the  Penta- 
teuch. Moral  Principles  of  the  Jewish 
Law,  Part  II.,  sec.  iiL,  and  DYMOND, 


Essays  on  Morality,  with  BLACKSTONE 
and  COKE  on  Natural  Law  and  Right. 
"  As  LIBERTY  is  equally  valuable  with 
LIFE,"  remarks  Graves,  "the  Jewish 

law,  WITH  THE  STRICTEST   EQUITY,  Or- 

dained  that  if  any  man  were  convicted 
of  attempting  to  reduce  any  fellow- 
citizen  to  slavery,  he  should  be  pun- 
ished with  death."  The  principle  of 
one  and  the  same  law  for  the  stranger 
and  the  native  applied  here,  for  the 
death  penalty  is  against  STEALING  A 
MAN,  and  it  has  been  again  and  again 
demonstrated  that  he  who  holds  a  man 
as  a  slave,' against  his  own  will,  re- 
news the  stealing  of  him  every  hour. 
"  Whoever,"  says  GISBORNE,  (Slave 
Trade,  144,  155,)  "detains  the  slave 
in  bondage,  directly  or  indirectly,  a 
moment,  commits  a  flagrant  sin  against 
God." 


CHAPTER    XV. 

PATRIARCHAL  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  ISAAC  AND  JACOB. — THE  OUTBADE  AT  SUKCHKX. — 
TBIBUTABY  SERVICE. — CAPTIVES  IN  WAR. — GOD'S  REPROBATION  ON  THE  CTOTOM  of 
SELLING  THEM  FOR  SLAVES. — THE  FIBST  INSTANCE  OF  MAN  STEALING. — CONDITION 
OF  THB  ISRAELITES  IN  EGYPT. 

LEPSIUS  has  noticed  the  great  personality  of  Abraham,  and 
what  he  calls  the  non-prominent  activity  of  Isaac.  The  con- 
trast is  indeed  striking ;  and  the  only  interval  in  which  we  be- 
hold hi  his  circumstances  the  patriarchal  greatness  and  prosper- 
ity of  his  father,  is  the  period  of  his  sojourn  in  the  land  of  the 
Philistines,  recorded  in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Genesis. 
But  Abraham  gave  all  that  he  had  unto  Isaac,  xxv.  5  ;  and 
the  account  given  of  him  some  twenty  years  after  Abraham's 
death,  is  as  follows:  "The  Lord  blessed  him,  and  the  man 
waxed  great,  and  went  forward  and  grew  until  he  became 
very  great ;  for  he  had  possession  of  flocks,  and  possession  of 
herds,  and  great  store  of  servants,"  xxvi.  12-14.  Here  the 
appellative  for  the  greatness  of  his  household  is  the  Hebrew 
rnw,  avudha,  the  verbal  from  -o»,  avadh^  signifying  the  whole 
body  of  his  domestics,  or  of  those  in  his  employment,  includ- 
ing, of  course,  the  herdsmen  and  well-diggers.  Compare 
Job,  i.  3,  the  description  of  Job's  very  great  household,  -ixto 
nan  n*a?..  There  is  no  intimation  of  slavery,  nor  any  approxi- 
mation thereto,  in  Isaac's  family  or  jurisdiction. 

From  him  the  same  gift  of  inheritance  descended  with  the 
right  of  the  first-born  to  Jacob,  in  whose  family  the  patriarchal 
dominion  and  opulence  passed  from  one  person  to  twelve  in 
the  constitution  of  the  Jewish  State.  During  the  sojourn  of 


158  WAR    AND    SLAVERY. 

Jacob  with  Laban,  there  is  no  change  of  manners,  no  intro- 
duction or  appearance  of  any  form  of  slavery.  Jacob  himself 
is  said  to  have  served  Laban  for  wages  ;  he  was  Laban's  serv- 
ant as  well  as  his  son-in-law  ;  and  it  is  said  that  "  the  man  in- 
creased exceedingly,  and  had  much  cattle,  and  maid-servants 
and  men-servants,"  Q^a*}  nhriDti,  Genesis,  xxx.  43.  These 
went  with  him,  when  he  fled  from  Laban :  they  were  his  nts?, 
avudha,  his  patriarchal  establishment,  when  he  met  Esau,  and 
sent  messengers  to  his  brother,  saying:  "I  have  oxen  and 
asses,  flocks,  and  men-servants,  and  women-servants,"  Genesis, 
xxxii.  5.  But  his  two  wives,  and  his  two  women-servants, 
and  his  eleven  sons,  are  described  as  his  immediate  family, 
and  are  set  apart  by  themselves — the  handmaidens  with  their 
children,  and  Leah  with  hers,  and  Joseph  and  Rachel,  Genesis, 
xxxiii.  6,  7.  After  a  favorable  interview  with  Esau,  he  travels 
on  slowly,  with  his  flocks  and  herds,  to  Succoth  and  Shalom, 
and  erects  an  altar. 

But  here,  at  Shechem,  was  perpetrated  that  murderous  out- 
rage, by  the  sons  of  Jacob,  in  the  sacking  and  spoiling  of  that 
city,  remembered  by  the  patriarch,  with  a  solemn  curse,  upon 
his  dying  bed.  After  destroying  the  males  of  the  city,  "  all 
their  wealth,  and  all  their  little  ones,  and  their  wives,  took 
they  captive."  There  is  no  account  of  the  final  disposition 
made  of  these  unfortunate  captives;  but  in  this  infamous 
transaction  we  have  the  first  intimation  of  any  possibility  of 
the  possession  of  servants,  by  violence  and  fraud,  among  the 
descendants  of  Abraham. 

WAR  AND  SLAVERY. CRIME  OFT  OF  CRIME. 

Among  the  heathen  nations,  captivity  in  war  was  one  of  the 
most  common  modes  by  which  men  became  slaves;  but  in 
the  history  of  Abraham  we  see  the  patriarch  refusing  to  sanc- 
tion such  a  transaction  by  his  example.  When  he  had  con- 
quered those  heathen  marauders  who  took  Lot  captive,  the 
king  of  Sodom  proposed  that  Abraham  should  give  him  the 


HOUSEHOLD     OF    JACOB.  159 

persons,  and  take  the  goods  to  himself,  dividing  thus  the  spoil 
between  them,  on  grounds  easy  to  be  guessed  at  from  our 
knowledge  of  the  morals  of  the  Sodomites.  But  Abraham  de- 
clared that  he  would  enter  into  no  bargain  with  him,  neither 
for  goods  nor  persons :  from  a  thread  to  a  shoe-latchet,  he 
would  take  nothing.  Aner,  Eshcol,  and  Mamre  the  Amorite 
might  make  what  terms  they  pleased,  but  he  himself  would 
take  nothing. 

Jacob's  abhorrence  of  the  conduct  of  his  sons  is  marked : 
he  denounced  the  whole  wickedness  of  the  murder  and  cap- 
tivity of  the  Shechemites,  and  was  beyond  measure  distressed 
by  it.  He  seems  to  have  made  it  the  occasion  of  a  religious 
reformation,  commanding  his  household,  and  all  that  were 
with  him,  to  put  away  the  strange  gods  that  were  among 
them,  and  be  clean,  Genesis,  xxxv.  2.  Thus  Jacob  returned 
to  the  habitation  of  Isaac  his  father,  who  died  in  Hebron  at 
the  age  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  years,  and  his  sons  Esau 
and  Jacob  buried  him.  "And  Esau  took  his  wives  and  his 
sons  and  his  daughters,  and  all  the  persons  of  his  house, 
!rv>2  rntifii— ViTiK1?,  and  all  his  substance  which  he  had  gotten  in 
the  land  of  Canaan,  and  went  into  the  country  from  the  face 
of  his  brother  Jacob ;  for  their  riches  were  more  than  that 
they  might  dwell  together,  and  the  land  wherein  they  were 
strangers  could  not  bear  them  because  of  their  cattle,"  Gen- 
esis, xxxvi.  6,  7.  Here  the  expression  Hrna  n'.tfis-^s  Jcol  naph- 
shoth  betho,  is  clearly  synonymous  with  n^ay  avudha,  in  the 
description  of  the  households  of  Isaac  and  Job;  it  compre- 
hends domestics  and  dependents,  the  born  in  the  house,  rpa 
•nV?,  and  the  hired  servants,  and  all  whose  time  and  services, 
in  a  limited  or  definite  apprenticeship,  were  bought  with  money 
of  the  stranger. 

The  blessing  of  a  birth-right  conferred  in  itself  no  superior 
authority  upon  one  brother  over  the  other ;  but  Isaac's  pecu- 
liar blessing  upon  Jacob,  on  the  occasion  recorded  in  Genesis, 
xxvii.,  made  Esau  tributary  to  his  brother,  as  unexpectedly  to 


160  CRIMINALITY    OP    SLAVERY    BY    WAR. 

Isaac  as  to  himself;  for  the  arrangement  had  been  quite  the 
reverse,  but  for  Rebecca's  deceit  and  Isaac's  blindness.  "  Let 
people  serve  thee,  and  nations  bow  down  to  thee :  be  lord 
over  thy  brethren,  and  let  thy  mother's  sons  bow  down  to  thee," 
Genesis,  xxvii.  29.  There  was  the  solemnity  of  a  divine  inspira- 
tion or  compulsion  in  this,  for  Isaac  felt  that  he  could  not  revoke 
or  change  it;  yea,  and  he  shall  be  blessed,  in  spite  of  his  strata- 
gem and  our  disappointment.  Behold,  I  have  made  him  thy 
lord,  and  all  his  brethren  have  I  given  to  him  for  servants, 
Genesis,  xxvii.  33,  37.  The  expression  for  servants  is  fnayjfc, 
laavadhim,  so  that  an  unscrupulous  advocate  for  the  divine 
right  of  slavery  might  much  more  plausibly  find  it  here,  in  the 
blessing  upon  Jacob,  than  in  the  curse  upon  Canaan.  But 
the  nature  of  this  domination  is  instantly  defined,  and  the 
definition  applies  to  both  transactions.  "  By  thy  sword  shalt 
thou  live,  and  shalt  serve  thy  brother ;  and  it  shall  come  to 
pass,  when  thou  shalt  have  dominion,  that  thou  shalt  break 
his  yoke  from  off  thy  neck."  Here  a  national  subjection  was 
meant,  and  not  a  personal  servitude. 

CAPTIVES  IN  WAR. — SINFULNESS  OF  MAKING  SLAVES  OF  THEM. 

That  the  divine  reprobation  rested  upon  the  custom  of 
making  slaves  out  of  captives  taken  in  war,  is  manifest  from 
many  passages.  God  never  permitted  it  among  the  Jews 
themselves,  when  there  were  two  kingdoms  in  conflict,  and 
among  other  nations  it  is  not  unfrequeutly  presented  as  a  sin 
and  misery,  the  result  of  a  marked  retributive  Providence. 

The  transaction  recorded  in  2  Chronicles,  xxviii.  8-15,  affords 
a  very  remarkable  proof  of  God's  abhorrence  of  such  a  traffic. 
It  is  a  lucid  commentary  on  the  laws  against  making  merchan- 
dise of  men ;  and  the  immediate  obedience  of  the  people  to 
the  word  of  the  Lord  forbidding  this  crime,  shows  how  deep- 
ly their  conscience  was  stirred  and  struck  with  remorse  under 
the  sense  of  it,  for  having  intended  it :  "  Deliver  the  captives 
again,  which  ye  have  taken  captive,  for  the  fierce  wrath  of 


GUILT    OF    THE    SLAVE    TRADE.  161 

the  Lord  is  upon  you ;"  "  Our  trespass  is  great,  and  there  is 
fierce  wrath  against  Israel ;"  "  Ye  purpose  to  keep  under  the 
children  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  for  bondmen  and  bond- 
women unto  you."  Such  compelled,  involuntary  bondage 
would  have  been  slavery,  would  have  been  the  stealing  and 
holding,  and  making  merchandise  of  men  ;  would  have  been, 
in  fact,  that  very  crime,  which,  by  the  divine  law,  was  to  be 
punished  with  death.  The  number  of  the  captives  was  two 
hundred  thousand;  but  so  convicted  and  subdued  were  the 
victorious  Israelites  before  the  word  of  God  by  the  prophet 
Oded,  so  penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
crime  they  were  on  the  brink  of  committing,  that  immedi- 
ately they  "  rose  up  and  took  the  captives,  and  with  the  spoil 
clothed  all  that  were  naked  among  them,  and  arrayed  them 
and  shod  them,  and  gave  them  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and 
anointed  them,  and  carried  all  the  feeble  of  them  upon  asses, 
and  brought  them  to  Jericho,  the  city  of  palm  trees,  to  their 
brethren."  This  is  a  record  of  immediate  obedience  to  God, 
in  the  midst  of  the  rage  and  flush  of  victory,  and  of  forbear- 
ance and  generosity  toward  the  vanquished  at  God's  com- 
mand, unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  history. 

The  account  is  full  of  instruction ;  for  of  all  the  modes  in 
which  men  have  ever  been  made  slaves,  conquest  in  war  has 
been  supposed  to  be  the  least  contrary  to  justice  ;  but  here  it 
is  denounced  as  a  crime  to  be  visited  with  the  fierce  wrath  of 
God.  But  if  so  in  the  case  of  a  war  between  rival  kingdoms, 
how  much  more  when  the  war  is  against  a  helpless  race,  such 
as  the  natives  of  Africa ;  a  piratical  invasion,  and  a  series,  un- 
interrupted, of  savage  incursions,  entered  upon,  instigated,  and 
perpetuated,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  seizing  and  carrying  away 
captive  the  wretched  victims  of  such  cruelty,  to  sell  them  as 
slaves,  and  to  keep  them  and  their  posterity  as  a  race  of  slaves, 
to  be  held,  bought,  and  sold,  as  chattels,  and  only  chattels, 
for  ever.  Both  the  foreign  piracy,  and  the  domestic  slave 
trade  in  the  United  States,  are  one  and  the  same  crime,  but 


162  FOBEIGN    AND    DOMESTIC. 

perpetuated  and  legalized  in  this  country  with  greater  aggra- 
vations; the  very  legalization  and  sanctification  of  it  constitut- 
ing a  greater  guilt,  and  working  out  in  it  and  by  it  a  far  more 
exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  infamy  and  cruelty. 

Among  heathen  nations  it  was  a  custom  to  dispose  of  the 
captives  taken  in  war  by  casting  lots  for  them.  This  was  the 
fate  endured  by  some  of  the  Jews  themselves,  who  were  thus 
disposed  of,  in  some  cases,  for  the  most  infamous  purposes 
conceivable,  Joel,  iii.  3.  "  They  have  cast  lots  for  my  people, 
and  have  given  a  boy  for  an  hai-lot,  and  sold  a  girl  for  wine, 
that  they  might  drink."  It  was  thus  that  the  cities  of  Egypt 
were  laid  waste,  and  the  inhabitants  carried  captive.  No 
Amon  is  mentioned  in  Nahum,  and  it  is  stated  that  "they 
cast  lots  for  her  honorable  men,  and  all  her  great  men  were 
bound  in  chains,"  Nahum,  iii.  10.  In  the  prophecy  of  Oba- 
diah,  the  Edomites  are  threatened  of  God  for  their  violence 
against  the  Israelites,  and  for  standing  aloof  when  the  heath- 
en carried  them  away  captive,  and  foreigners  entered  their 
gates  and  cast  lots  upon  Jerusalem,  Obadiah,  11.  They  are 
also  accused  of  "  standing  in  the  crossway  to  cut  off  those 
that  escaped,"  and  of  "  delivering  up  those  that  remained," 
and  it  is  declared  that,  as  they  had  done  to  others,  so  should 
it  be  done  to  them,  Obadiah,  14,  15. 

In  the  same  manner,  the  tribes  and  inhabitants  of  Tyre  and 
Zidon,  and  of  the  coasts  of  Palestine,  are  arraigned  and  assured 
of  God's  vengeance,  because  they  had  sold  the  children  of  Ju- 
dah  and  the  children  of  Jerusalem  to  the  Grecians,  that  they 
might  be  removed  far  from  their  border,  Joel,  iii.  6.  For  this 
iniquity  God  declares,  "  I  will  sell  your  sons  and  your  daugh- 
ters into  the  hand  of  the  children  of  Judah,  and  they  shall  sell 
them  to  the  Sabeans,  to  a  people  far  off,  for  the  Lord  hath 
spoken  it,"  Joel,  iii.  8.  As  a  direct  testimony  of  God  in  re- 
gard to  the  sinfulness  of  such  a  traffic,  these  passages  are  very 
important.  The  being  sold  in  bondage  is  presented  as  one  of 
the  most  terrible  judgments  of  God  upon  a  guilty  nation.  The 


FIRST    CASE    OF    MAN-STEALING.  163 

same  judgment  is  threatened  against  the  sinful  Hebrews  them- 
selves, Deuteronomy,  xxviii.  68,  as  the  climax  of  all  the  curses 
pronounced  against  them  for  their  sins:  "Ye  shall  be  sold 
unto  your  enemies  for  bondmen  and  bondwomen,  and  no  man 
shall  buy  you :"  ye  shall  be  tossed  to  and  fro  for  sale,  as  so 
many  cattle,  with  the  shame  and  the  misery  of  being  so  de- 
spised and  abhorred  that  no  master  will  be  willing  to  buy 
you. 

The  despotism  of  such  a  dominion,  even  when  it  was  in 
some  measure  lightened,  and  God  began  to  redeem  them 
from  it,  is  graphically  set  forth  in  the  confession,  prayer,  and 
covenant  of  Nehemiah  and  the  people,  returning  from  their 
captivity.  "  Behold  we  are  servants  this  day  in  the  land  thou 
gavest  to  our  fathers,  and  it  yieldeth  much  increase  to  the 
kings  whom  thou  hast  set  over  us  because  of  our  sins ;  also, 
they  have  dominion  over  our  bodies,  and  over  our  cattle  at 
their  pleasure,  and  we  are  in  great  distress,"  Nehemiah,  ix. 
36,  37. 

THE  FIRST  INSTANCE   OF   MAN-STEALING. 

There  needed  no  law  against  man-stealing  to  assure  the 
conscience  of  its  being  a  crime ;  and  it  has  been  a  subject  of 
wonder  that  the  sons  of  Jacob  could  so  deliberately  and  re- 
morselessly plunge  themselves  into  such  guilt.  But  the  steps 
in  the  history  are  logical  forerunners  and  sequences.  Events 
follow  upon  character,  and  one  act  produces  another,  with  a 
perfect  moral  fitness  and  fatality.  Any  thing  might  have  been 
expected,  any  development  could  not  have  been  surprising, 
after  the  dreadful  tragedy  at  Shechem.  The  murderous  sack- 
ing of  that  city,  and  the  disposal  of  the  captives,  had  prepared 
the  sons  of  Jacob,  "  moved  with  envy,"  (the  former  passion 
having  been  revenge),  for  the  crime  of  kidnapping.  They 
took  their  choice  between  murdering  their  brother  and  selling 
him,  it  being  only  the  providence  of  God,  in  the  passing  of 
the  Ishmaelites  just  then,  from  Gilead  toward  Egypt,  with  their 
caravan  of  camels,  laden  with  spices,  and  balm,  and  myrrh, 


164  FIBST    CASE    OP    MAN-STEALING. 

that  suggested  to  them  the  merchandise  as  more  profitable. 
So  they  sold  Joseph  to  the  Ishmaelities  for  twenty  pieces  of 
silver.  And  the  Midianites  sold  him  into  Egypt,  Genesis, 
xxxvii.  28-36.  The  word  used  for  this  transaction  is  in  both 
cases  the  same,  ns»,  mdkar.  And  Potiphar  bought  him, 
"T?)?^'  vayiknehu,  xxxix.  1.  The  word  bought  is  from  n:j>, 
kanah,  and  the  same  is  applied,  Nehemiah,  v.  8,  to  the  pur- 
chase, for  redemption,  of  the  Jews  that  had  been  sold  unto 
the  heathen.  Joseph  is  called  by  Potiphar's  wife,  xxxix.  17, 
the  Hebrew  servant,  1*?*,  haevedh.  Joseph  describes  the 
transaction  by  which  he  was  brought  into  bondage  in  Egypt 
as  man-stealing  •  for  indeed  I  was  stolen  away  out  of  the  land 
of  the  Hebrews,  •'Foj.i  nii.  The  chief  butler's  description  or 
designation  of  Joseph  is  that  of  a  young  man,  a  Hebrew,  serv- 
ant to  the  captain,  na»  ^ay  i»s,  naar,  ivry,  evedh,  Genesis, 
xli.  12. 

In  the  course  of  Joseph's  interview  with  his  brethren,  the 
word  15?,  evedh,  is  very  frequently  employed ;  and  they  and 
Joseph  use  it  to  signify  both  the  condition  of  a  free  servant 
and  of  one  condemned  to  servitude  for  crime.  The  variety  in 
the  translation  of  the  same  term,  sometimes  by  the  word  bond- 
man, sometimes  servant,  is  singularly  loose  and  groundless, 
Genesis,  xliv.  9,  10,  16,  17,  33:  "With  whomsoever  of  thy 
servants  (nsy,  evedh),  it  be  found,  both  let  him  die,  and  we 
also  will  be  my  lord's  bondmen,"  (nas,  evedh),  the  same  word, 
servants.  "  And  he  said,  He  shall  be  my  servant"  (tw,  evedh}. 
And  again,  "  Let  thy  servant  (ia»,  evedh],  abide  instead  of 
the  lad,  a  bondman"  (nas,  evedh),  Genesis,  xliv.  33.  The  bond- 
age here  signifies  a  servitude  in  punishment  of  crime — a 
slavery  into  which,  without  crime,  Joseph  had  been  many 
years  previous  most  diabolically  sold  by  his  own  brethren  for 
twenty  pieces  of  silver.  It  was  a  question,  then,  whether  to 
sell  him  or  leave  him  to  die ;  a  most  extraordinary  demonstra- 
tion of  the  exactly  equivalent  nature  of  the  two  crimes  of  mur- 
der and  man-stealing;  showing  the  diabolism  at  heart,  and 


ISRAELITES    IN    EGYPT.  165 

proving  that  a  man  capable  of  making  merchandise  of  his 
brother  man  was  capable  also  of  murdering  him,  the  latter 
form  of  wickedness  requiring  no  greater  malignity  than  the 
former.  And  if  men,  under  the  light  of  revelation,  can  see 
nothing  criminal  in  slavery,  neither  would  they  in  murder,  if 
murder,  like  slavery,  should  become  profitable. 

CONDITION    OF    THE    ISRAELITES    IN    EGYPT. 

The  question  next  arises,  in  the  order  of  the  history, 
whether  any  of  the  great  store  of  servants  spoken  of  as  for- 
merly belonging  to  Jacob's  household,  went  down  with  him 
into  Egypt  to  settle  there.  No  mention  is  made  of  them,  and 
only  his  own  posterity  are  pai'ticularized  in  the  census.  "  And 
Jacob  rose  up  from  Beersheba,  and  the  sons  of  Israel  carried 
Jacob  their  father,  and  their  little  ones,  and  their  wives,  in 
the  wagons  which  Pharaoh  had  sent  to  carry  him.  And  they 
took  their  cattle,  and  their  goods,  which  they  had  gotten  in 
the  land  of  Canaan,  and  came  into  Egypt,  Jacob,  and  all  his 
seed  with  him.  His  sons  and  his  sons'  sons  with  him,  his 
daughters  and  his  sons'  daughters,  and  all  his  seed  brought  he 
with  him  into  Egypt,"  Genesis,  xlvi.  5,  7.  "  All  the  souls  that 
came  with  Jacob  into  Egypt,  which  came  out  of  his  loins,  be- 
sides Jacob's  sons'  wives,  all  the  souls  threescore  and  six," 
xlvi.  26.  The  enumeration  here  is  simply  all  that  came  out  of 
Jacob's  loins ;  it  does  not  prove  that  none  others  were  with 
them ;  and  Joseph  is  said  to  have  "  nourished  his  father,  and 
his  brethren,  and  all  his  father's  household,  with  bread,  accord- 
ing to  their  families,"  xlvii.  12,  rra—Vs  ns%  veethkolbeth,  all  the 
household.  Joseph's  own  enumeration  to  Pharaoh  was :  "  My 
father,  and  my  brethren,  and  their  flocks,  and  their  herds,  and 
all  that  they  have,  are  in  the  land  of  Goshen."  The  two  years 
of  sore  famine  must  have  greatly  reduced  the  nna?_,  avudha, 
the  household  establishment  of  the  patriarch,  once  so  rich  and 
numerous.  Servants  and  dependents  would  be  dismissed,  their 
herds  and  their  flocks  would  be  diminished  ;  nevertheless,  we 


166 


THE    SPOILING    OP    EGYPT. 


can  not  certainly  conclude  that  no  servants  whatever  went 
with  them  into  Egypt.  But  there  we  shortly  find  the  testi- 
mony, Exodus,  i.  7,  that  "  the  children  of  Israel  were  fruitful, 
and  increased  abundantly,  and  multiplied,  and  waxed  exceed- 
ing mighty,  and  the  land  was  filled  with  them." 

Though  they  occupied  a  separate  province,  yet  manifestly  at 
the  time  of  Moses  and  the  Exodus  there  was  much  comming- 
ling with  the  Egyptians  in  social  life  and  in  neighborhoods. 
There  was  visiting  and  sojourning  between  Egyptian  and  He- 
brew families.  This  is  clear  from  Exodus,  xii.  21-23,  and  Ex- 
odus, iii.  21,  22  :  "  Every  woman  shall  borrow*  of  her  neighbor, 


*  The  error  in  regard  to  this  trans- 
action is  very  great,  if  it  be  sup- 
posed that  the  Hebrews  really  pre- 
tended to  borrow  with  the  intention 
of  returning,  and  that  such  deception 
was  sanctioned  of  God.  It  is  a  mis- 
translation, like  that  of  slave  for  serv- 
ant. 

"  Of  those  numerous  writers  who 
take  every  opportunity  of  depreciat- 
ing the  Bible,  many  have  been  care- 
ful to  dilate  upon  the  impropriety  of 
the  Israelites  borrowing  goods  of  the 
Egyptians,  when  about  finally  to 
leave  the  country,  and  consequently 
without  any  intention  of  repayment. 
In  addition  to  what  is  said  in  the  text 
in  explanation  of  this  conduct,  and 
on  the  justice  of  this  requital,  it  will 
be  quite  sufficient  to  observe  that  the 
idea  of  borrowing  arises  entirely  from 
the  English  translation,  and  has  no 
place  in  the  original,  which  is,  liter- 
ally, "to  ask."  So  the  Septuagint 
reads:  "Every  woman  shall  ask  of 
her  neighbor,"  eta  Should  any  one 
still  contend  for  rendering  the  word 
VKB,  borrow,  let  him  try  to  render 
it  so  in  Psalm  cxxii.  6:  0  borrow  the 
peace  of  Jerusalem !  (KENNICOTT)." — 
SMITH'S  SACKED  ANNALS,  voL  iL,  62. 


Gesenius  renders  the  word,  mu- 
tuum  pelivit,  asked  or  sought,  but  he 
also  renders  it  postulavit,  as  a  demand. 
But  God  declared  that  this  was  done 
as  a  just  retribution:  "Ye  shall  spoil 
the  Egyptians ;"  that  is  (as  in  verse  20, 
where  God  says,  "  I  will  smite  Egypt,") 
"Ye  shall  spoil  Egypt,"  Exodus,  iii.  22. 
Accordingly,  Exodus,  xii.  36,  it  is  said, 
"  They  spoiled  the  Egyptians,"  or, 
as  in  the  other  case,  it  may  be  trans- 
lated, they  spoiled  Egypt.  It  was 
a  just,  retributive  process ;  for  the 
Egyptians  had  despoiled  the  He- 
brews, had  taken  their  labor  without 
wages,  had  made  them  serve  without 
right  and  without  recompense,  so 
that  whatever  the  Hebrews  now  took 
away  was  no  more  than  belonged  to 
them.  God  did  not  propose  a  com- 
pensation to  the  Egyptians  for  the  loss 
of  so  many  slaves  set  free,  but  in  this 
divine  scheme  of  emancipation  he 
proposed  some  compensation  to  the 
oppressed  bondmen,  besides  their  free- 
dom, some  compensation  for  the  in- 
justice and  robbery  they  had  en- 
dured. 

If  the  slaves  of  the  United  States 
were  emancipated  on  these  divinely 
recognized  principles,  the  spoiling  of 


THE  BONDAGE  IN  EGYPT.  167 

and  of  her  that  sojourneth  in  her  house."  A  degree  of 
intimacy  and  familiarity  is  here  intimated,  which  the  op- 
pressive edicts  and  cruel  measures  of  the  Pharaohs  had 
not  broken  up.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  death  of  Jacob 
and  Joseph  and  all  that  generation,  their  condition  in 
Egypt  had  been  one  of  honor  and  prosperity,  and  their  in- 
tercourse with  the  Egyptians  was  disastrously  productive 
of  increasing  looseness,  luxury,  and  idolatry  in  social  life, 
and  was  full  of  evil  morally,  as  it  was  of  advantage  finan- 
cially. The  system  of  cruelty  at  length  adopted  by  the 
government  of  Egypt  did  not  find  nor  create  a  correspond- 
ing cruelty  on  the  part  of  the  Egyptian  people,  and  their 
friendly  communion  with  the  Hebrews  was  kept  up  even  to 
the  last. 

From  Exodus,  i.  11,  it  would  seem  that  the  avenue  or 
pretense  on  which  their  oppressors  began  to  afflict  them 
was  the  collection  of  the  tribute  for  the  king.  Operating 
by  means  of  officers,  tax-gatherers,  for  the  collection  of 
the  impost,  they  seem  to  have  required  its  payment  in 
labor,  and  to  have  increased  the  severity  of  that  labor  at 
their  pleasure  :  "  Let  us  deal  wisely  with  them.  There- 
fore they  did  set  over  them  aitstt  •*•?»,  sarai  missim,  cap- 
tains for  the  tribute,  to  afflict  them  with  their  burdens." 
Under  these  exactors,  other  officers  were  appointed,  called 
afterwards  i»ab,  nogesai,  tasJcmasters,  Exodus,  v.  10 ;  and 
under  them,  from  among  the  Hebrews  themselves,  were 
appointed  •>"&»,  shoterai,  overseers.  Exodus,  v.  14-19  ; 

their  oppressors,  by  compelling  them  See  also  CALVIN,  HARMONY  OF 
to  make  some  restitution  of  defrauded  THE  PENTATEUCH,  vol.  i.,  Exodus, 
wages,  would  be  equally  just  The  iii.  22.  Calvin's  translation  of  the 
African  slaves  have  as  perfect  a  claim  word  is  postulabit.  HENGSTENBERG 
upon  their  masters  as  the  Hebrews  supposes  the  spoil  to  have  been  a 
had  on  theirs  ;  the  borrowing  and  free  gift  of  the  Egyptians  to  the 
spoiling  would  be  as  just  a  divine  Hebrews,  in  consequence  of  the  kind- 
requisition  ia  the  one  case  as  in  the  ness  produced  in  their  hearts  towards 
other.  See  JOSEPHUS'  ANTIQ.,  book  Israel,  by  God  giving  them  favor  in 
ii.,  chap,  xiv.,  sec.  vi.  their  sight. 


168  THE  BONDAGE  IN  EGYPT. 

in  fact,  slave-drivers.  How  large  a  proportion  of  the  peo- 
ple were  drafted  for  these  burdens,  or  how  many  were 
exempt,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  It  was  a  servile 
conscription,  but  it  did  not  make  the  whole  people,  per- 
sonally, slaves. 

The  condition  of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt  was  one  of  kind- 
ness, freedom,  and  comfort,  in  comparison  with  the  condition 
of  the  victims  of  slavery  in  America.  They  were  a  separate 
community,  with  their  own  institutions,  and  only  tributary  to 
the  Egyptians.  They  possessed  large  property  in  flocks  and 
herds,  and  very  much  cattle.  They  had  for  their  abode  the 
land  of  Goshen,  the  best  part  of  Egypt.  In  their  neighbor- 
hood with  the  Egyptians,  they  dwelt  in  their  own  houses, 
which  were  secure  from  violation,  each  family  in  a  house  by 
itself.  Their  manner  of  living  was,  in  respect  to  provisions, 
abundant  and  nourishing,  There  was  never  any  pretense  on 
the  part  of  their  oppressors  of  owning  them  as  chattels  ;  they 
were  not  treated  as  merchandise,  they  could  not  be  sold.  It 
was  a  governmental  oppression,  but  under  which  they  were 
as  far  removed  from  the  condition  of  that  chattel  slavery 
in  which  four  millions  of  human  beings  in  the  United  States 
are  trampled  and  bound,  as  the  subjects  of  Austrian  oppres- 
sion in  Italy.  Yet  this  comparatively  light  oppression  endured 
by  them  is  reprobated  of  God  as  grievous,  afflictive,  cruel,  in- 
iquitous ;  a  crime  deserving  of  his  wrath,  a  crime  demanding, 
and  visited  with,  the  most  tremendous  retribution.  In  the 
light  of  such  a  demonstration,  what  language  would  be  strong 
enough  to  describe  the  divine  disapprobation  and  wrath  against 
American  slavery  ?  And  what  is  the  probable  future  of  our 
country,  if  we  persist  in  this  crime,  bold,  defiant,  impenitent  ? 

See  GRANVTLLE  SHARPS,  Law  of  Friend,  58,  163.    "The  only  choice 

Retribution,  and  WHEWELL,  Duty  of  left  to  a  vicious  government  is  either 

the  State,  VoL  IL,  1003  ;  compared  to  fall  by  the  people,  if  they  are  suf- 

•with  JEFFERSON,  Correspondence,  and  fered  to  become  enlightened,  or  with 

Notes  on  Virginia,   39,   40 ;    ABB£  them,  if  they  are  kept  enslaved  and 

BAYNAL,    BURKE    and    COLERIDGE,  ignorant." 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

NATURE  OP  TRIBUTARY  SERVITUDE. — CASE  OP  TOT  OANAASITES  GENERALLY,  AND  OF  THE 
GIBEONITES  PARTICULARLY. — CASE  OP  THE  NETIIINIM. — CONDITION  OF  THE  SERV- 
ANTS OF  THE  CAPTIVE  JEWS. — JARHA,  THE  EGYPTIAN. — CHILDREN  OF  SOLOMON'S 
SERVANTS.— STRANGERS  APPOINTED  TO  LABOR. — NOTHING  OF  SLAVERY  IN  ANY  OF 
THESE  CONDITIONS  OR  RACES. 

NATURE  OF  TRIBUTARY  SERVITUDE. — CASE   OF  THE  CANAANITES 
GENERALLY,  AND  OF   THE    GIBEONITES   PARTICULARLY. 

IN"  the  prophetic  blessing  of  Jacob  upon  his  children,  it  is 
said  of  Issachar  that  "  he  bowed  his  shoulder  to  bear,  and  be- 
came a  servant  unto  tribute,"  13*  o»^>,  lemas  ovedh,  Genesis, 
xlix.  16.  As  our  line  of  induction  and  of  argument  is  at  present 
historical,  taking  up  the  points  of  statutory  law  in  their  regu- 
lar succession,  we  propose  here  to  examine  the  nature  of  the 
tributary  and  personal  servitude  imposed  by  the  Mosaic  laws, 
and  set  in  practice  by  Joshua,  upon  the  Canaanitish  nations. 
This  phrase,  -rs'y— oteV,  lemas  ovedh,  a  servant  unto  tribute,  ap- 
plied by  Jacob  to  Issachar,  is  the  generic  expression  descrip- 
tive of  that  servitude.  Let  us  carefully  trace  the  principle, 
the  law,  and  its  operation. 

THE    PRINCIPLE    AND    LAW. 

In  Deuteronomy,  xx.  11,  it  was  enacted  that  when  any  city 
of  the  heathen  was  conquered  by  the  Hebrews,  "all  the  peo- 
ple found  therein  shall  be  tributaries  unto  thee,  and  they  shall 
serve  theef  ^'.i^?.!  OfcV  ^  ^rn.  The  same  expression  is  found 
in  Joshua,  xvi.  10,  of  the  conquered  Canaanites  serving  the 
Ephraimites  under  tribute.  The  form  is  exactly  that  used  by 
Jacob  in  reference  to  Issachar,  nafr-o'eV  iry^,  lemas  ovedh.  la 

Judges,  i.  28,  30,  33,  35,  we  have  four  instances  of  the  same 

8 


170  LAW    OF    TRIBUTARY    SERVICE. 

expression  applied  to  the  treatment  of  the  Canaanites — by 
Manasseh,  by  Zebulon,  by  Naphtali,  and  the  house  of  Joseph. 
They  did  not  drive  out  nor  exterminate  the  inhabitants,  but 
they  became  tributaries  unto  them,  osV  tnV  ^n,  hayu  lahem 
lamas  ;  in  verse  28,  they  put  the  Canaanites  to  tribute,  v& 
1S2SSH— n$  fcto"3,  lamas.  In  Joshua,  xvii.  13,  the  same  expres- 
sion, varied  only  in  the  use  of  the  verb  its,  they  set,  or  ap- 
pointed, the  Canaanites,  e»V,  lemas,  to  tribute.  So  in  Isaiah, 
xxxi.  8,  the  young  men  of  the  conquered  Assyrians  shall  be 
for  tribute,  shall  serve  as  tributaries,  svi?  o»V,  lamas.  We 
shall  see,  from  a  comparison  of  1  Kings,  ix.  21,  22,  and  2  Chron- 
icles, viii.  8,  9,  precisely  what  this  kind  of  tributaryship  was 
in  personal  service. 

The  law  in  regard  to  the  Hittites,  Amorites,  Canaanites, 
Perizzites,  Hivites,  and  Jebusites,  was  this ;  that  they  should 
be  exterminated;  nothing  should  be  saved  alive  "that  breath- 
eth,"  in  any  of  the  cities  of  the  people,  whose  land  God  had 
given  to  the  Hebrews  for  their  inheritance,  Deuteronomy, 
xx.  15,  16,  17;  also  Deuteronomy,  vii.  1-4.  And  the  reason 
was  plain,  namely,  "that  they  teach  you  not  to  do  after  all 
their  abominations,  which  they  have  done  unto  their  gods," 
Deuteronomy,  xx.  18;  Exodus,  xxiii.  23,  33. 

EXCEPTIONS     UNDER     THE     LAW. — TREATY     WITH     THE 
GIBEONITES. 

Only  to  the  cities  of  other  and  distant  heathen  nations  was 
peace  to  be  proclaimed,  and,  if  accepted,  then  the  people  were 
to  be  tributaries,  as  above ;  but  if  not  accepted,  and  war  was 
preferred,  then  all  the  males  were  to  be  destroyed,  and  the 
women  and  the  little  ones  preserved,  Deuteronomy,  xx.  12-14. 
See,  for  an  example  of  the  manner  in  which  this  law  was  ful- 
filled, Numbers,  xxxi.  7-18,  in  the  war  against  the  Midianites. 
The  children  of  Israel  took  the  women  of  Midian  captives, 
and  their  little  ones.  See,  also,  in  regard  to  the  cities  of  the 
Canaanites,  Joshua,  vl.  21,  and  viii.  26 ;  also,  x.  32,  35,  37,  39, 


TREATY    WITII    THE  GIBEONITES.  171 

and  xi.  11-19.  And,  for  exafnple  of  the  different  treatment 
of  cities  not  of  the  Canaanites,  see  Joshua,  ix.  15,  27,  the 
league  that  was  made  with  the  Gibeonites,  under  the  sup- 
position that  they  were  a  distant  people ;  and  which  was  ful- 
filled, according  to  the  law,  as  above,  by  which  the  distant 
nations  were  to  be  treated.  The  Gibeonites  were  made  trib- 
utaries :  "  There  shall  none  of  you  be  freed  from  being  bond- 
men, and  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the  house 
of  my  God,"  Joshua,  ix.  23. 

More  than  four  hundred  years  afterwards,  under  the  reign 
of  David,  this  treaty  was  remembered,  and  a  most  tremendous 
judgment  came  upon  the  kingdom  in  consequence  of  its  vio- 
lation by  Saul.  The  three  years'  famine  mentioned  in  1  Sam- 
uel, xxi.  1,  was  declared,  of  God,  to  be  for  Saul  and  for  his 
bloody  house,  because  he  slew  the  Gibeonites.  According  to 
the  treaty  made  with  them  by  Joshua,  they  were  to  be  always 
employed  in  the  menial  service  of  God's  house.  The  treaty 
was  kept.  The  city  of  Gibeon,  with  most  of  its  dependen- 
cies, fell  to  the  lot  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  for  an  inher- 
itance, Joshua,  xviii.  25.  It  was  also,  with  its  suburbs,  ap- 
pointed of  God,  by  lot,  to  be  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Levites, 
given  to  them  for  an  inheritance  out  of  Benjamin,  Joshua, 
xxi.  17.  But  more  than  this,  it  became  the  place  of  the 
tabernacle*  of  the  congregation  of  God,  1  Chronicles,  xvi.  39, 
and  xxi.  29,  and  also  2  Chronicles,  i.  3  ;  and  the  great  high 
place  of  sacrifice,  1  Kings,  iii.  4 ;  and  of  the  brazen  altar  be- 
fore the  tabernacle,  2  Chronicles,  i.  5,  where  Solomon  offered 
a  thousand  burnt-offerings  at  once ;  and  where  God  appeared 
to  Solomon,  and  entered  into  covenant  with  him,  1  Kings, 
iii.  5. 

There  is  a  remarkable  coincidence  between  this  historic  fact 
and  the  tenor  of  the  treaty  with  the  Gibeonites,  Joshua,  ix. 

*   "  Being  brought  thither  as  to    tuary  when  Shiloh  fell." — LIGHTFOOT, 
tho  chief  residence  of  the  sons  of     voL  ii.,  p.  198. 
Ithamar,  who  waited   on  tho  sane- 


172  SERVICE  OF  THE  ALTAB. 

27  :  "  For  Joshua  made  them  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water  for  the  congregation,  and  for  the  altar  of  the  Lord, 
even  unto  this  day,  in  the  place  which  he  should  choose."  No 
one  could  have  foreseen  that  he  would  choose  Gibeon  ;  but  so 
it  was.  Yet  not  in  that  city  only  did  the  Gibeonites  serve 
the  altar ;  but  when  the  city  was  passed  to  the  inheritance  of 
the  Levites,  the  Gibeonites  and  their  race  must  have  become 
the  servants  of  the  priests,  "  for  the  congregation  and  for  the 
altar  of  the  Lord,"  wherever  the  tabernacle  was  set  up,  as  at 
Nob,  the  city  of  the  priests,  where  David  received  the  hal- 
lowed bread  from  Ahimelech,  1  Samuel,  xxi.  1  and  xxii.  19. 
In  his  wrath  against  Ahimelech,  and  against  all  that  hai'bored 
David  at  that  time,  Saul  not  only  slew  the  priests,  fourscore 
and  five,  but  destroyed  the  whole  city  of  the  priests,  with  all 
its  inhabitants,  1  Samuel,  xxii.  18,  19.  This  was  the  most 
atrocious  and  the  hugest  crime  of  all  his  reign.  Nothing  is  to 
be  found  that  can  be  compared  with  it. 

Several  points  are  now  determined :  1st,  The  separation  of 
a  particular  race  to  be  bondmen  of  the  altar,  servants  of  the 
priests,  for  the  service  of  God's  house,  in  a  class  of  labors  in- 
dicated by  the  proverbial  expression  "  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water."  There  is  no  intimation  of  the  Gibeonites 
or  their  posterity  ever  being  servants  in  any  other  way,  or  in 
private  families.  2d,  This  service,  and  their  separation  and 
consecration  for  it  as  a  race,  was  a  boon  granted  them  instead 
of  death,  which  otherwise,  by  the  Divine  law,  they  must  have 
suffered.  They  were  spared,  in  consequence  of  the  treaty 
with  them  ;  and  the  covenant  with  them  was  of  life  and  labor 
as  the  servants  of  the  sanctuary.  The  life  was  pleasant,  the 
service  was  not  over-toilsome ;  they  accepted  it  with  gratitude. 
3d,  The  treaty  was  kept  for  hundreds  of  years ;  and  from 
generation  to  generation  the  Gibeonites  and  their  posterity 
fulfilled  their  part  of  it,  continuing,  as  at  first  appointed, 
the  servants  of  the  sanctuary.  4th,  Saul  was  the  first  who 
broke  this  treaty  ;  and  God's  own  view  of  its  sacredness  may 


CASE    OF    THE  NETHUSTM.  173 

be  known  by  the  terrible  manner  in  which  he  avenged  its 
breach,  and  continued  to  protect  the  Gibeonites.  Saul  had 
not  only  destroyed  the  city  of  Nob,  but  had  "  devised  means 
by  which  the  Gibeonites  should  be  destroyed  from  remaining 
in  any  of  the  coasts  of  Israel,"  2  Samuel,  xxi.  4. 

CASE    OF   THE   NETHINIM. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  Gibeonites  constituted  a  part 
of  the  Nethinim,  so  often  mentioned  as  the  servants  of  the 
tabernacle  and  of  the  temple.  The  first  trace  of  this  name 
we  meet  in  Numbers,  iii.  9,  and  viii.  19,  where  the  Levites  are 
said  to  be  given  as  a  gift  d^irs  nethinim,  from  God  to  Aaron 
and  his  sons  for  the  service  of  the  tabernacle.  Also,  Num- 
bers, xviii.  6.  The  verb  from  which  this  word  is  derived,  •jrs, 
nathan,  is  used  by  Joshua  in  describing  the  result  of  the  treaty 
made  with  the  Gibeonites :  he  gave  or  granted  them  to  be- 
come, he  set  or  established  them,  hewers  of  wood,  etc.,  for 
the  altar  of  the  Lord,  Joshua,  ix.  27 ;  he  nethinized  them  for 
the  service  of  the  priests.  So,  in  1  Chronicles,  vi.  48,  the  Le- 
vites are  said  to  have  been  appointed,  D^s^ni,  nethinized,  unto 
all  manner  of  service  in  the  tabernacle.  In  the  same  manner, 
for  the  service  of  the  Levites,  others  were  given,  appointed, 
nethinized ;  and  this  class,  under  the  Levites,  included  the 
Gibeonites,  and  came  to  be  designated,  at  length,  apart  from 
them,  and  from  other  servants,  as  the  Nethinim,  o^rsn,  1 
Chronicles,  ix.  8,  where  the  name  first  occurs  as  of  a  separate 
class ;  the  people  returned  from  the  captivity  in  Babylon  be- 
ing designated  as  Israelites,  Priests,  Levites,  and  the  Neth- 
inim. Then  the  term  occurs  in  Ezra,  ii.  43,  58,  coupled  with 
the  children  of  Solomon's  servants,  vp»  -^a,  in  one  and  the 
same  classification ;  all  the  Nethinim  and  the  children  of  Sol- 
omon's servants,  in  number,  three  hundred  and  ninety-two. 
"  The  priests  and  th.e  Levites,  and  some  of  the  people,  and 
the  singers,  and  the  porters,  and  the  Nethinim,  dwelt  in  their 
cities ;  and  all  Israel  in  their  cities,"  Ezra,  ii.  70.  Priests,  Le- 


174  PEIVILEGES    OF    THE    NETHINIM. 

vites,  singers,  porters,  and  Nethinim  are  again  specified  in 
Ezra,  vii.  1 ;  and,  in  verse  24,  the  edict  of  Artaxerxes  is  spe- 
cified, forbidding  any  toll,  tribute,  or  custom  from  being  laid 
upon  priests,  Levites,  singers,  porters,  Nethinim,  or  ministers 
of  the  house  of  God. 

In  Ezra,  viii.  17-20,  a  message  is  sent  to  Iddo  and  his  breth- 
ren the  Nethinim,  at  the  place  Casiphia,  for  ministers  for  the 
house  of  God ;  and  in  answer  to  this  message,  there  were 
sent,  along  with  a  number  of  Levites,  two  hundred  and  twen- 
ty Nethinim,  of  the  Nethinim  whom  David  and  the  princes 
had  appointed  for  the  service  of  the  Levites.  In  Nehemiah, 
iii.  26,  the  Nethinim  are  recorded  as  having  repaired  their  por- 
tion of  the  wall  of  Jerusalem,  near  their  quarter  in  Ophel. 
They  are  also  enumerated,  as  in  Ezra,  along  with  the  children 
of  Solomon's  servants,  as  having  come  up  from  the  captivity, 
Nehemiah,  vii.  60,  73.  They  are  also  recorded  with  the  Le- 
vites, priests,  and  others,  as  parties  in  the  great  covenant 
which  the  people  renewed  with  God,  to  observe  his  statutes, 
x.  28.  The  particular  quarter  of  Jerusalem  where  they  dwelt 
is  pointed  out,  and  the  names  of  the  overseers  that  were  over 
them,  Nehemiah,  xi.  21.  Others  of  them,  as  well  as  of  the 
priests,  Levites,  and  children  of  Solomon's  servants,  dwelt  in 
other  cities,  according  to  their  respective  possessions  and  en- 
gagements, Nehemiah,  xi.  3. 

Their  return  to  Jerusalem  from  the  captivity  was  volun- 
tary :  they  might  have  remained  abroad.  It  was  not  a  return 
to  slavery,  but  a  resumption,  of  their  own  accord,  of  the  serv- 
ice of  the  sanctuary,  to  which  they  had  been  devoted.  So  it 
was,  likewise,  with  "  the  children  of  Solomon's  servants ;"  they 
resumed  their  position  in  their  native  land,  of  their  own 
choice,  and  by  no  compulsion.  And  both  the  Nethinim  and 
the  descendants  of  Solomon's  servants,  had  their  families  and 
lineal  ancestry  preserved  in  the  genealogical  register  of  the 
nation.  They  had  "entered  into  the  congregation  of  the 
Lord." 


SERVANTS    OF    THE    CAPTIVITY.  175 

I 
CASE   OF   THE   SERVANTS    OF   THE   CAPTIVE   JEWS. 

Tho  enumeration  given  by  Ezra  of  the  returned  people,  is, 
for  the  whole  congregation,  forty-two  thousand  three  hundred 
and  sixty,  besides  their  servants  and  their  maids,  fin-nay 
en^rncK-,,  of  whom  there  were  seven  thousand  three  hundred 
thirty  and  seven  ;  and  there  were  among  them  two  hundred 
singing  men  and  singing  women.  At  first  sight  it  might  have 
been  supposed  that  these  singing  men  and  singing  women 
formed  a  part  of  the  train  of  servants;  but  it  does  not  appear 
so  from  the  corresponding  record  of  Nehetniah  :  they  were  an 
additional  class.  They,  with  the  servants  and  the  maids,  may 
all  have  been  "bought"  by  the  Jews  during  their  captivity; 
but  the  purchase  of  a  servant  was  no  indication  of  slaveiy, 
where  this  language  was  customary  to  describe  even  the  ac- 
quisition of  a  wife,  or  the  buying  of  a  Hebrew  servant,  who 
could  not  be  a  slave.  The  case  of  the  free-born  Hebrew  sell- 
ing himself  for  money,  Leviticus,  xxv.  47,  is  in  point;  and  the 
same  person  who  has  thus  voluntarily  sold  his  own  time  for 
money  is  afterward  said  to  have  been  bought,  xxv.  51.  Such 
was  the  common  usage  of  the  term,  not  at  all  implying 
slavery. 

It  seems  remarkable  that  they  should  return  from  their 
captivity  in  such  array  :  men-servants  and  maid-servants, 
trvrnfcNi  err-nay,  seven  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty- 

•-•     .*        *  ~  ;          '••    *"  :  "'  * 

seven ;  singing  men  and  singing  women  two  hundred  and 
forty-five,  Nehemiah,  vii.  67.  To  account  for  this,  we  have  to 
turn  to  the  prophet  Isaiah,  to  the  prediction  of  God,  that  when 
he  should  have  mercy  upon  his  captive  people,  and  set  them 
again  in  their  own  land,  "  the  strangers  should  be  joined  with 
them,  and  should  bring  them  to  their  place,  and  the  house  of 
Israel  should  possess  them,  in  the  land  of  the  Lord  for  serv- 
ants and  handmaids,  n'.hs^i.  s^a?.?,  and  they  shall  take  them 
captives  whose  captives  they  were,"  Isaiah,  xiv.  2.  Here  is  a 
most  remarkable  fulfillment  of  prophecy.  At  the  same  time 


170  SERVANTS    OP    THE    CAPTIVITY. 

it  is  obvious  that  the  whole  arrangement  of  their  servitude 
must  have  been  of  contract,  and  voluntary — a  service  for 
which  remuneration  was  required  and  given.  It  must  have 
been  in  every  respect  a  service  contracted  and  assumed,  ac- 
cording to  the  principles  and  laws  laid  down  in  the  Mosaic 
statutes,  and  in  no  respect  a  slavery  such  as  those  statutes 
were  appointed  to  abolish. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that,  in  the  language  of  Nehemiah,  the 
term  na>',  evedh,  is  not  used  in  designating  servants,  but  the 
word  -i?i,  naar,  young  man;  as,  for  example,  Nehemiah,  v.  16, 
spoken  of  the  governor's  servants,  en"1"??.?)  having  borne  rule 
over  the  people;  also  v.  16,  all  Nehemiah's  servants,  ^-si— *>s  ; 
also  iv.  22,  of  the  people  with  their  servants,  every  one  with 
his  servant,  *n?;}  ts'-x ;  also  iv.  23,  I,  nor  my  servants,  I^PM  •>*«. 
The  same  in  v.  10,  and  other  places.  The  usage  is  plain,  and 
not  to  be  mistaken.  The  same  usage  prevails  in  the  book  of 
Ruth. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  Nehemiah  intends  to  describe 
what  the  Jews  themselves  had  been  in  their  captivity,  he  uses 
the  word  na?,  evedh.  For  example,  chapter  v.  5,  "We  bring 
into  bondage  our  sons  and  our  daughters  to  be  servants, 
fc^asV  cr*^  ;  also  ii.  10,  Tobiah  the  servant,  na:rrj  rva'-to'i ;  also 
ix.  36,  We  are  servants,  d^a*  ;  and  xi.  3,  The  children  of 
Solomon's  servants,  ta^a?. 

There  was  a  "  mixed  multitude"  that  came  up  with  the  Is- 
raelites from  the  captivity,  xiii.  3,  and  of  this  multitude  the 
two  hundred  and  forty-five  singing  men  and  singing  women 
must  have  formed  a  part.  The  servants  belonged  to  the  same 
class;  and  there  were  a  large  number  of  strange  women  of 
the  Moabites,  Ammonites,  Egyptians,  and  others,  with  whom 
the  people  had  intermarried,  and  formed  families.  These 
would  bring  their  household  servants  with  them ;  but  the 
class  designated  by  Nehemiah  as  tt^s,  naarim,  must  have 
been  of  a  different  character.  They  may  have  been  free,  and 
free-born  in  every  respect,  making  their  own  contracts  of 


THE  SERVANT  OF  SHESHAN.  177 

service,  and  choosing  their  own  masters.  And  whether  i^sr, 
evedh,  or  nr$,  naar,  whether  strangers  or  natives  of  Palestine, 
they  belonged,  when  circumcised,  to  the  Jewish  nation,  and 
"might  enter  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord."  They 
might  have  been  slaves  in  Egypt,  or  Ethiopia,  or  Assyria,  but 
they  could  not  be  such  in  Judea ;  on  the  contrary,  however 
.degraded,  in  whatever  country  from  which  they  came,  the 
Mosaic  Institutes  immediately  began  to  elevate  and  emanci- 
pate them. 

We  find  an  interesting  and  important  instance  in  the  epi- 
sode related  in  1  Chronicles,  ii.  34,  35 — the  case  of  the  Egyp- 
tian Jarha,  the  servant  of  Sheshan,  and  adopted  by  him  as  his 
son,  to  whom  he  gave  his  daughter  to  wife,  and  the  Jewish 
genealogy  of  the  family  continued  uninterrupted  in  the  line  of 
their  children.  This  is  an  instructive  commentary  on  the 
laws ;  and,  being  a  case  nearly  parallel,  in  point  of  time,  with 
the  transactions  hi  the  book  of  Ruth  (for  Sheshan  must  have 
been  nearly  cotemporary  with  Boaz),  it  indicates,  as  well  as 
that  history,  the  admirable  contrast  between  the  freedom 
prevalent  in  Judea  and  the  despotism  in  every  other  country. 
"  I  am  the  Lord  your  God,  which  brought  you  forth  out  ot 
the  land  of  Egypt,  that  ye  should  not  be  their  bondmen ;  and 
I  have  broken  the  bands  of  your  yoke,  and  made  you  go  up- 
right," Leviticus,  xxvi.  13.  The  same  emancipating  power, 
exerted  by  God's  interposing  and  protecting  providence  and 
discipline  upon  the  Jews  themselves,  was  also  exercised  by  the 
system  of  statutes,  privileges,  and  instructions  under  which 
the  poorest  and  humblest  creature  in  the  land  was  brought, 
upon  the  bond-servants  taken  from  the  heathen :  the  bands  of 
their  yoke  were  broken,  and  they  were  made  to  go  upright. 
"  Thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Edomite,  for  he  is  thy  brother ; 
thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Egyptian,  because-  thou  wast  a 
stranger  in  his  land.  The  children  that  are  begotten  of  them 
shall  enter  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord  in  their  third 
generation,"  Deuteronomy,  xxiii.  7,  8. 

8* 


178  CRUELTY  OF  SLAVE  THEOLOGY. 

The  people  and  the  nation  were  absolutely  forbidden  to 
treat  any  race  of  strangers  in  their  land  as  they  had  themselves 
been  treated  in  the  land  of  Egypt.  Ye  shall  not  oppress  the 
stranger,  for  ye  know  the  heart  of  the  stranger,  for  ye  were 
strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt;  and  the  stranger  in  your  own 
land  shall  not  be  treated  as  ye  were  treated  in  the  land  of  your 
bondage.  Such  was  the  benevolent  tenor,  and  such  the  ex- 
plicit benevolent  letter,  of  the  laws  of  God  in  regard  to  the 
treatment  of  other  z'aces  brought  into  Judea  or  sojourning  in 
the  laud.  How  absurdly  incongruous  with  these  statutes  is  the 
supposition,  which  nevertheless  many  persons  entertain,  that 
the  Hebrews  were  at  liberty  to  make  slaves  of  the  heathen, 
the  strangers  round  about.  They  were  expressly  interdicted 
from  any  such  oppression,  and  warned  against  it.  Their  laws 
made  it  impossible.  The  reprobation  of  God  against  it  is  a 
solemn  indication  of  the  exasperated  greatness  of  the  sin  in 
his  sight,  the  sin  against  God  and  man,  when  a  Christian  na- 
tion, under  so  much  greater  light,  distinctly  enacts  and  prac- 
tices, on  a  vast  scale,  the  oppressive  cruelty  which  he  has  for- 
bidden ;  brands  a  whole  race  of  human  beings  as  fit  stun0  only 
for  slavery  ;  assumes  the  rightful  possession  of  them  for  such 
bondage,  to  make  perpetual  slaves  out  of  them,  to  be  a  supply 
of  chattels  from  generation  to  generation. 

HYPOCRISY   AND    CRUELTY    OF    SLAVE   THEOLOGY. 

As  God  is  said  to  have  given  to  Christ  the  heathen  for  his 
inheritance,  to  save  them,  so  the  patrons,  theologians,  and 
devout  workers  and  brokers  of  the  slave  theology  profess  to 
have  received  the  Africans  as  their  inheritance,  to  bring  them 
through  the  hell  of  slavery  (which  in  this  case  is  the  highest 
missionary  agency,)  to  the  heaven  of  a  servile  piety.  It  is 
impossible  to. regard  without  horror  the  diabolic  caricature 
of  religion,  which  has  been  evoked  as  from  the  bottomless  pit, 
in  support  of  this  atrocity,  and  set  with  anthems  in  the  church 
of  Christ,  with  a  more  blasphemous  impiety  than  ever  attend- 


THE   DRED   SCOTT  DECISION.  179 

ed  the  enshrinement  of  Dagon  or  of  Baal  in  the  temple  of  the 
living  God.  The  public  solemn  excommunication  of  a  race 
of  human  beings  from  all  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  the  con- 
secration of  them  in  the  name  of  piety  and  justice  to  the  per- 
petual condition  of  a  slavery  in  many  respects  the  most  cruel 
and  unmitigated  ever  known  upon  the  globe,  was  a  spectacle 
reserved  for  the  government,  judiciary,  and  people  of  the 
United  States  of  America  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the 
Christian  era.  When  we  behold  such  a  transaction,  and  read 
the  new  enactments  and  decisions  of  sweeping  and  exacer- 
bated cruelty,  with  which  the  vast  speculative  crime  is  being 
consummated  in  practice,  we  are  filled  with  wonder  at  the 
long-suffering  of  God,  that  the  bolts  of  divine  vengeance  do 
not  suddenly  break  upon  such  a  nation  and  people. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  this  system  of  iniquity  could 
scarcely  be  carried  to  a  higher  point  of  juridical  impiety  than 
in  the  decision  by  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  in  the 
case  of  Dred  Scott — a  decision  which  was,  in  fact,  a  decree 
for  the  moral  assassination  of  the  race.  But  every  step  in 
this  sin  is  onward,  none  backward,  and  the  States  are  not  to 
be  outdone  by  the  national  government  in  their  advancement. 
It  might  have  been  imagined  that  the  slave  code  was  already 
sufficiently  barbarous,  but  the  Dred  Scott  decision  has  shown 
that  there  was  room  for  improvement,  and  now  it  is  publicly 
decreed  that  negroes,  or  persons  having  the  least  tincture  of 
African  blood,  are  an  inferior  race,  aliens,  and  not  only  aliens 
but  enemies,  excluded  from  civilized  governments  and  the 
family  of  nations,  and  doomed  to  slavery.  "  It  is  the  policy 
of  this  State,"  says  the  High  Court  of  Errors  and  Appeals  of 
the  State  of  Mississippi,  "  to  interdict  commerce  and  comity 
with  this  race,  and  by  law  expressly  provided,  we  enforce  the 
strictest  doctrines  of  the  ancient  law  as  applicable  to  alien 
enemies,  except  as  to  life  and  limb,  against  them.  We  en- 
slave them  for  life  if  they  dare  set  their  foot  on  our  soil  and 
omit  to  leave  on  notice  in  ten  days,  and  this  not  on  the  prin- 


180  NATIONAL   PIRACY. 

ciple,  supposed  by  some,  of  enmity,  inhumanity  or  unkindness 
to  such  inferior  race,  but  on  the  great  principles  of  self-preser- 
vation which  have  induced  civilized  nations  in  every  age  of 
the  world  to  regard  them  as  only  fit  for  slaves." 

The  hypocrisy  that,  in  a  Christian  State,  in  the  tribunal  of 
justice,  could  pretend  a  necessity  of  self-preservation  as  the 
motive  and  the  justification  for  such  atrocities,  is  quite  equal 
to  the  malignity  of  the  atrocities  themselves.  In  the  lowest 
pitch  ot  Jewish  or  of  pagan  degradation  no  ancient  people 
ever  sank  so  low  as  this;  even  when  any  of  the  old  uncivil- 
ized or  demon  nationalities  contemplated  a  similar  crime,  they 
were  not  so  lost  to  all  truth  and  decency  as  to  proclaim  the 
falsehood  that  their  own  existence  depended  on  the  subjec- 
tion of  a  race  of  slaves,  and  that  therefore  they  were  not 
inhumanly,  but  most  righteously,  willingly  and  of  necessity 
forced  into  such  wickedness  as  a  measure  of  self-defense.  It 
was  not  till  they  had  arrived  at  such  a  condition  that  they 
could  compass  the  betrayal  and  crucifixion  of  the  Saviour  of 
mankind,  their  own  Messiah,  that  even  the  Jews  could  pro- 
fess, as  a  justification  of  this  murder,  through  the  lips  of  the 
high  priest  of  their  religion  and  their  justice,  that  it  was 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the  state  that  one  man  should  be 
sacrificed,  "  that  the  whole  nation  perish  not:"  These  two 
crimes,  the  crucifixion  of  Christ  and  the  consecration  of  the 
African  race  to  slavery,  on  the  same  plea  of  state  necessity, 
show  that  nothing  but  the  affinity  of  the  same  depravity  is 
wanting,  to  make  even  two  such  extremes  meet  in  their  utter- 
most corruption,  as  those  of  ancient  Judaism  and  modern 
Christianity ;  the  same  cruel  selfishness  will  convert  them,  as 
with  one  leaven,  into  the  same  putrid  mass.  The  Christianity 
that,  under  the  plea  of  self-preservation,  or,  still  worse,  of  a 
missionary  benevolence,  can  maintain  slavery  as  an  element 
of  justice  and  humanity,  is  not  a  whit  behind  the  religion 
that,  in  the  name  of  a  religious  state  compassion  and  neces- 
sity, could  crucify  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 


CRUELTY   OF   SLAVE   LAW.  181 

In  addition  to  the  horrible  barbarity  which,  by  an  act  of 
national  piracy,  takes  possession  of  a  race  of  strangers  and 
condemns  them  to  be  sold  as  slaves,  just  as  savage  wreckers 
would  seize  a  stranded  ship  thrown  upon  the  coast  and  steal 
both  crew  and  cargo,  or  destroy  the  crew  to  possess  the  car- 
go,— in  addition  to  this  barbarity,  the  slave  jurisprudence 
of  our  country  proceeds  to  an  extreme  that  never  disgraced 
any  other,  that  of  excluding  the  miserable  victims  of  such 
cruelty  from  all  possibility  of  an  appeal  to  justice  against 
any  violence  or  wrong,  however  diabolical.  The  laws  of  the 
Jews  commended  the  stranger  to  the  protection  of  the  same 
statutes  by  which  the  people  of  the  land  were  secured  from 
cruelty  and  fraud.  The  laws  even  of  the  Romans  provided 
some  appeals  to  religion,  if  not  justice,  for  the  lowest  slaves.* 
Our  Christian  system  denies  all  possibility  of  any  rights 
belonging  to  this  persecuted,  tortured,  colored  race,  that 
their  white  persecutors,  their  missionary  saviours,  are  bound 
to  respect.  We  cast  them  out  as  mere  things,  chattels,  and 
not  persons,  from  all  possibility  of  any  appearance  or  states 
in  a  court  of  justice,  or  any  claim  upon  the  laws  of  the  coun- 


*  A  fugitive  slave,  who  entered  a  The  laws  against  emancipation,  and 
temple,  or  embraced  a  statue  of  a  in  favor  of  slavery,  are  every  year 
god,  or  of  an  emperor,  could  not  be  more  rigid,  and  every  new  decision  is 
restored  to  his  own  master,  but  could  made  more  unalterably  against  free- 
claim  from  the  magistrate  the  privi-  dom.  Mr.  Baker  Woodruff,  a  slave 
lege  of  being  sold  at  auction,  the  owner  in  New  Orleans,  who  died  in 
privilege,  at  least,  of  a  change  of  May,  1857,  ordered  in  his  will  that 
masters.  The  slaves  were  also  al-  his  slaves,  sixty-two  in  number,  should 
lowed  a  peculium  of  their  own,  which  be  liberated  and  sent  to  Pennsylvania, 
might  increase,  by  industry,  to  a  small  providing  also  for  their  passage  thither 
patrimony,  enabling  them  to  buy  their  and  their  support  during  the  first  year, 
own  liberty.  But  the  slave  in  America  The  permission  to  apply  any  portion 
finds  mercy  neither  from  religion  nor  of  the  estate  for  the  execution  of  this 
the  law.  The  state  of  perpetual  slav-  will  was  denied  by  the  court,  on  the 
ery  is  impudently  proclaimed  to  be,  for  ground  that  the  slaves  could  not  be  lib- 
him,  the  highest  happiness  of  which  crated.  The  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals, 
he  is  capable  on  earth,  and  the  surest  in  April,  1859,  decided  in  the  same 
pathway  to  the  happiness  of  heaven,  way,  and  the  slaves  have  been  sold. 


182  SANCTION   OF    SLAVERY   IN   THE   CHUBCH. 

try,  save  the  security  of  being  oppressed  by  those  laws. 
They  are  subjects  of  law  for  oppression  only,  for  use  and 
abuse  at  the  will  of  their  so-called  owners.  It  is  not  possible 
to  convey  in  human  language  an  adequate  idea  of  the  com- 
plication of  cruelty  and  wrong,  impiety  toward  God,  inhu- 
manity toward  man,  defiance  and  violation  of  all  just  law, 
human  and  divine,  and  of  every  sentiment  of  benevolence  and 
justice  in  the  law  of  nature  engraven  on  the  common  heart 
and  conscience  of  mankind,  with  which,  in  this  Christian 
country,  and  by  a  professedly  Christian  people,  the  miserable 
race  of  outcasts  and  yet  natives,  subjected  to  the  state  of 
slavery,  are  treated  on  the  plea  of  having  a  skin  not  colored 
like  our  own. 

But  the  very  worst  feature  of  the  crime  is  this,  that  the 
popular  religion  of  the  country  accepts,  defends  and  sanctions 
it ;  and  those  persons  are  held  to  be  bad  citizens,  agitators, 
disturbers,  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  good  order  of  the 
state,  suspicious  and  afflictive  members  of  the  church,  not  who 
defend  slavery,  but  who  oppose  it,  and  demand  its  abolition 
as  a  sin  against  God  and  man !  It  hurts  no  man's  character 
or  popularity  to  be  a  slaveholder ;  it  does  not  exclude  him 
from  membership  even  in  missionary  churches,  nor  from  the 
station  of  corporate  membership  or  directorship  in  missionary 
or  Bible  associations ;  on  the  contrary,  the  ownership  of  slaves, 
or  a  known  fellowship  with  the  owners  of  them  as  Christians 
of  unspotted  piety,  and  a  defense  of  the  propriety  and  expe- 
diency of  such  continued  ownership,  make  up  an  element  of 
conservatism,  that  rather  increases  than  diminishes  the  in- 
fluence of  such  a  member  of  society.  And  Christian  preachers 
can,  without  losing  caste,  declare,  that  if  by  a  single  prayer 
they  could  emancipate  the  slaves  they  would  not  do  it ;  that 
under  Christian  masters  no  condition  can  be  conceived  more 
favorable  to  salvation  than  that  of  the  slaves ;  that  slavery 
possesses  the  divine  sanction ;  that  nevertheless  it  is  "  a  sore 
social  evil,  but  was  entailed  upon  us  by  God,  that  freedom 


A   PORTENTOUS     WICKEDNESS.  183 

might  be  established  and  Christianity  spread  over  Africa !" 
Such  monstrous  wens  and  excrescences  of  moral  pestilence  men 
can  cany  about  with  them,  and  not  be  shunned  by  a  sane  and 
healthful  society,  nor  quarantined  in  it ;  while  they  who  lift 
up  their  voices  against  this  iniquity,  and  denounce  it  in  the 
name  of  God,  especially  from  his  Word,  from  the  pulpit  on 
the  Sabbath  day,  are  marked  for  avoidance  and  suspicion,  and 
wherever  it  is  possible,  ejected  from  their  parishes,  afnd  shut 
out  from  the  opportunity  of  ministering  God's  truth. 

What  an  amazing  and  portentous  phase  of  the  Christian 
religion,  what  judicial  blindness  it  would  seem  to  intimate, 
and  a  state  like  that  of  the  idolaters  under  the  light  of  divine 
revelation,  as  described  by  the  prophet  Isaiah;  men  who, 
with  their  eyes  open,  could  carve  out  their  own  gods  for  them- 
selves, as  schoolboys  might  cut  a  whistle  or  an  image  from  a 
poplar  branch,  and  burn  the  remainder  of  the  stick  in  the  fire ; 
could  carry  their  gods  under  their  girdles  or  in  their  trowsers' 
pockets,  and  yet  not  be  able  even  to  suspect  the  folly  of  such 
idiotic  debasement ;  not  so  much  unclouded  reason  left  as  to 
be  capable  of  asking,  "  Is  there  not  a  lie  in  my  right  hand  ?" 
It  is  an  equally  strange  inconsistency,  when  men  in  one 
and  the  same  breath  proclaim,  to  the  honor  of  Christianity, 
that  its  prevalence  abolished  Roman  slavery,  when  almost  uni- 
versal through  the  world,  and  that  the  very  same  Christianity, 
better  known,  reinstates  a  worse  slavery  in  religious  and  en- 
lightened America,  and  inaugurates  it  as  God's  last,  chosen 
and  most  effective  system  of  social,  civil,  and  missionary  prog- 
ress and  refinement  I 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  SOLOMON'S  SERVANTS. — THE  TRIBUTARY  SERVICE  LEVIED  ON  THEM. 
— THE  TRIBUTARY  SERVICE  OF  STRANGERS. — NOTHING  OF  SLAVERY  IN  IT.— NA- 
TIONS TO  HAVE  BEEN  EXTERMINATED,  BUT  ADMITTED  TO  THE  TRIBUTARY 
SERVICE. — CONDITION  OF  TUB  RACKS  UNDER  THIS  LAW. — BILL  OF  THE  ENSLAVED 
FOR  WAGES. 

CASE    OF    THE    CHILDREN    OF    SOLOMON'S    SERVANTS,    AND    OF 
THE    STRANGERS   APPOINTED   TO   LABOR. 

The  children  of  Solomon's  servants,  as  well  as  the  Nethinim, 
have  the  honor  of  being  registered,  according  to  their  gene- 
alogy by  families,  as  in  Nehemiah,  vii.  57-60.  Ten  individu- 
als, or  heads  of  families,  are  named ;  and  their  children  are 
the  children  of  Solomon's  servants,  numbering,  together  with 
the  Nethinim,  only  three  hundred  and  ninety-two.  From  the 
context  it  would  appear  that  their  fathers'  house  was  consid- 
ered of  Israel ;  and  they,  being  able  to  show  their  genealogy, 
were  honorably  distinguished  from  others,  who  could  not 
show  their  fathers'  house,  nor  their  pedigree,  whether  they 
were  of  Israel,  Nehemiah,  vii.  61.  On  the  whole,  it  would 
seem  that  they  were  a  favored  class,  and  honorably  distin- 
guished by  their  service,  which  was  to  them  an  hereditary 
privilege  worthy  of  being  retained,  and  not  an  ignoble  or  a 
toilsome  separation,  nor  a  mark  of  bondage. 

We  must,  however,  consider  their  state  and  probable  em- 
ployment, in  connection  with  the  following  passages  and 
proofs  in  regard  to  the  tributary  service  levied  by  Solomon 
upon  them  and  similar  classes.  In  2  Chronicles,  ii.  17,  18,  we 
find  it  recorded  that  Solomon  numbered  all  the  strangers  that 
were  in  the  land  of  Israel,  after  the  numbering  wherewith 


CHILDREN    OF    SOLOMON'S    SERVANTS.  185 

David  his  father  had  numbered  them  }  and  they  were  found 
a  hundred  and  fifty-three  thousand  and  six  hundred.  And 
he  set  threescore  and  ten  thousand  of  them  to  be  bearers  of 
burdens,  and  fourscore  thousand  to  be  hewers  in  the  moun- 
tain, and  three  thousand  and  six  hundred  overseers,  to  set  the 
people  to  work.  See  also  1  Kings,  v.  15,  16.  To  this  is  add- 
ed,  on  occasion  of  the  mention  of  Solomon's  vast  enterprises 
in  the  building  of  cities,  the  following  historical  record,  2 
Chronicles,  viii.  7,  8,  9  :  "  All  the  people  left  of  the  Hittites, 
and  the  Amorites,  and  the  Perizzites,  and  the  Hivites,  and  the 
Jebusites,  that  were  not  of  Israel,  but  were  of  their  children 
who  were  left  after  them  in  the  land,  whom  the  children  of 
Israel  consumed  not,  them  did  Solomon  make  to  pay  tribute 
unto  this  day.  But  of  the  children  of  Israel  did  Solomon 
make  no  servants  for  his  work."  Comparing  this  with  the 
similar  record  in  1  Kings,  ix.  20,  21,  22,  we  find  some  addi- 
tional light  as  to  the  kind  of  tribute  exacted :  "Their  children 
that  were  left  after  them  in  the  land,  whom  the  children  of 
Israel  were  not  able  utterly  to  destroy,  upon  these  did  Solo- 
mon levy  a  tribute  of  bond-service,  izy  e»V,  a  tribute  of  labor ; 
but  of  the  children  of  Israel  did  Solomon  make  no  bondmen." 
The  tribute,  then,  was  an  appointed  value,  paid  in  manual 
labor,  furnished  by  these  tributary  races,  in  the  person  of  la- 
borers, who  labored  not  as  hired  servants,  but  as  working  out 
the  taxes  of  such  service  imposed  by  the  monarch. 

All  the  strangers  were  numbered,  o'^w?,  the  same  word 
used  in  Leviticus,  xix,  33,  34,  and  other  passages,  as  Exodus, 
xxii.  21 :  "Thou  shalt  not  oppress  the  stranger;  the  stranger 
shall  be  as  one  born  amongst  you,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the 
land  of  Egypt."  But  these  nations  of  Canaan,  that  were  to 
have  been  utterly  destroyed,  see  Deuteronomy,  xx.  17,  had 
never  been  exterminated,  and  the  different  tribes,  in  their  in- 
heritance, could  not  drive  them  out;  but  as  far  and  as  fast  as 
possible,  put  them  to  tribute,  made  them  serve  under  tribute, 
ttV,  Joshua,  xvi.  10,  being  precisely  the  same  expression 


186  TEIBUTABY    SEBVICE    OF    STKA.NGEES. 

used  in  2  Chronicles,  viii.  9,  and  1  Kings,  ix.  21,  of  the  tribute 
of  bond-service  levied  by  Solomon.  See  Joshua,  xv.  63  and 
xvii.  12,  13  ;  also  Judges,  i.  21,  27,  28,  30,  33,  35  ;  also  iii.  3,  5. 
This  tributary  service  did  not  make  them  all  hereditary  bond- 
men ;  but  was  a  tax  of  service  to  a  certain  amount,  levied 
according  to  fixed  rules,  so  that  these  foreign  races  must  sup- 
ply a  sufficient  number  of  laborers  to  work  out  that  tax.  The 
tax  was  a  perpetual  tribute ;  consequently,  the  bond-service 
by  which  it  must  be  paid,  was  perpetual,  unless  there  had  been 
a  system  of  commutation,  of  which,  however,  we  find  no  direct 
evidence.  It  was  only  the  races  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  such 
as  are  mentioned  in  1  Kings,  ix.  20,  21,  and  2  Chronicles,  viii. 
7,  that  could  by  law  be  thus  treated ;  and  such  treatment  was 
itself,  in  reality,  a  merciful  commutation,  instead  of  that  de- 
struction to  which  they  had  originally  been  devoted. 

The  numbering  of  these  strangers  for  the  work  of  building 
the  temple,  was  begun  by  David ;  that  work  was  a  public, 
national,  and  religious  service,  such  as  that  to  which  the  Gib- 
eouites,  more  especially,  from  the  outset  had  been  consecrated, 
at  a  time  when  it  was  supposed  that  they  only,  of  all  the  in- 
habitants of  Canaan,  would  have  been  spared.  But  a  great 
many  others  were  spared  also ;  so  that,  in  the  general  num- 
bering of  the  people  by  Joab,  at  David's  command,  2  Samuel, 
xxiv.  2,  and  1  Chronicles,  xxi.  2,  the  cities  of  the  Hivites  and 
of  the  Canaanites  are  particularly  designated,  2  Samuel,  xxiv. 
7 ;  and  comparing  this  with  Joshua,  xvii.  12,  and  Judges,  i.  27 
-33,  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  the  particular  designation 
is  with  reference  to  the  class  of  inhabitants.  In  this  general 
census  of  the  people,  Joab  seems  to  have  noted  these  "  stran- 
gers" by  themselves ;  and  after  this  census  "  David  command- 
ed to  gather  together  the  strangers  that  were  in  the  land 
of  Israel,  and  he  set  masons  to  hew  wrought  stones  to  build 
the  house  of  God,"  1  Chronicles,  xxii.  2.  It  is  doubtless  to  this 
that  the  reference  is  made  in  2  Chronicles,  ii.  1 7,  "  Solomon 
numbered  all  the  strangers  that  were  in  the  land  of  Israel, 


THE    TRIBUTARY    EACES.  187 

after  the  numbering  wherewith  David  his  father  had  numbered 
them." 

That  the  strangers  numbered  and  appointed  for  their  work 
by  David,  and  those  numbered  and  appointed  by  Solomon, 
were  of  the  same  class,  and  that  this  class  comprised  the  races 
named  in  Solomon's  catalogue  of  tribes  from  whom  he  levied 
his  tribute  of  bond-service,  is  rendered  more  certain  by  an 
examination  of  the  number  of  foreigners  or  strangers  of  all 
classes  that  must  have  been,  at  this  time,  under  the  royal 
government  of  Israel.  In  1  Chronicles,  v.  10,  19,  20,  21,  there 
is  an  account  of  a  battle  between  the  Reubenites  and  a  very 
numerous  tribe  of  Hagarites,  in  which  the  children  of  Israel 
gained  a  great  victory,  insomuch  that  they  captured  a  hun- 
dred thousand  souls.  This  was  in  the  days  of  Saul.  Besides 
these  Hagarites,  it  is  evident  that  the  number  of  tributaries 
must  have  greatly  increased  from  David's  own  wars,  as  is 
proved  in  2  Samuel,  viii.  4,  14.  We  should  have  a  census  of 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  "strangers,"  from 
these  transactions  alone;  so  that  the  number  recorded  in  2 
Chronicles,  ii.  17  (a  hundred  and  fifty-three  thousand  and  six 
hundred)  as  being  all  the  strangers  in  the  land  of  Israel,  must 
be  taken  as  rated  for  legal  bond-service,  from  the  nations  or 
remaining  races  of  the  Canaanites  only. 

In  this  connection  we  must  remember  the  law  in  regard  to 
all  heathen  nations  conquered  in  war,  (except  the  Hittites, 
Amorites,  Canaanites,  Hivites,  Perizzites,  and  Jebusites,  de- 
voted to  extermination,)  which  was  as  follows,  Deuteronomy, 
xx.  10, 11 :  "  When  thou  comest  nigh  to  a  city  to  fight  against 
it,  then  proclaim  peace  unto  it;  and  it  shall  be,  if  it  make  thee 
answer  of  peace,  and  open  unto  thee,  then  it  shall  be  that  all 
the  people  that  is  found  therein  shall  be  tributaries  unto  thee, 
and  they  shall  serve  thee."  Between  these  and  the  races  of 
the  Canaanites  there  seems  to  have  been  a  distinction  as  to 
treatment  always  maintained.  It  would  seem  that  Leviticus, 
xxv.  45,  "  Of  the  children  of  the  strangers  that  do  sojourn 


188  CONDITION    OP    SUCH    RACES. 

among  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy,"  must  refer  particularly  to 
the  Canaanitish  races,  as  we  shall  see  more  particularly  in  the 
examination  of  that  passage.  These  nations  and  their  descend- 
ants were  to  be  made  to  pay  a  tribute  of  bond-service,  such 
as  the  Hebrews  could  not  exact  from  all  the  heathen,  and 
were  forbidden  to  impose  on  one  another.  Accordingly,  in 
the  account  of  such  bond-service,  as  laid  by  Solomon  on  the 
descendants  of  these  races,  it  is  expressly  stated  in  contrast, 
that  "  of  the  children  of  Israel  did  Solomon  make  no  bond- 
men." A  levy  was  raised  at  the  same  time,  from  all  Israel, 
of  thirty  thousand  men  who  labored  in  Lebanon,  ten  thousand 
a  month,  by  courses,  1  Kings,  v.  13,  14 ;  but  this  was  very 
different  from  the  tribute  of  bond-service  levied,  which  com- 
prised the  threescore  and  ten  thousand  that  bare  burdens,  and 
fourscore  thousand  hewers  in  the  mountains.  Along  with 
these  tributary  and  hereditary  laborers,  there  were  united  the 
laborers  obtained  from  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  for  whose  service 
Solomon  paid  Hiram,  but  not  them :  "  unto  thee  will  I  give 
hire  for  thy  servants,  according  to  all  that  thou  shall  appoint," 
1  Kings,  v.  6. 

That  the  condition  of  the  races  under  this  law  of  tributary 
service  was  not  one  of  general  or  oppressive  bondage,  is  clear 
from  the  position  in  which  Araunah,  the  Jebusite,  appears  be- 
fore us  in  the  interview  between  him  and  David,  2  Samuel, 
xxiv.  Araunah,  although  of  the  tributary  race,  is  a  substan- 
tial householder  and  farmer,  dwelling  amidst  his  own  posses- 
sions, and  making  a  bargain  with  king  David,  as  in  every  re- 
spect a  freeman.  Uriah,  also,  though  high  in  the  service  of 
David,  and  having  his  house  at  Jerusalem,  was  a  Hittite.  The 
tributary  service  was  evidently  a  very  different  thing  from 
universal  personal  servitude.  In  the  same  way,  from  the 
transaction  recorded  in  Exodus,  ii.  9,  we  learn  that  the  servi- 
tude of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt  was  not  so  universal  as  that  all 
were  slaves,  or  treated  as  such.  Pharaoh's  daughter  makes  a 
bargain  with  the  mother  of  Moses,  for  a  nurse's  service,  and 


WOBKING    OUT   TAXES.  189 

gives  her  her  wages.  The  woman  is  free  to  make  such  a  bar- 
gain, and  to  receive  such  wages  on  her  own  account.  There 
is  no  master  over  her,  notwithstanding  that  the  tyranny  of 
Pharaoh  is  so  terrible  that  she  dare  not  acknowledge  her  own 
child,  lest  he  be  put  to  death. 

In  our  own  country  there  is  a  service  of  tribute,  called  the 
highway  tax.  Those  who  do  not  choose  to  pay  this  tax  in 
money,  may  work  it  out,  if  they  please,  in  person,  or  may 
hire  laborers  to  work  it  out  for  them.  The  service  of  tribute 
levied  upon  the  strangers  in  Judea,  must  have  been  some- 
thing such  a  service.  It  is  possible  that  David's  sin  against 
God  in  numbering  the  people,  may  have  consisted  in  some 
purposed  odious  distinction,  oppressive  and  illegal,  by  which 
it  was  intended  to  set  apart  the  descendants  of  the  strange 
or  foreign  races,  and  to  exact  from  them  a  tribute  or  im- 
pose upon  them  a  bondage,  in  connection  with  the  building  of 
the  temple,  displeasing  to  God,  and  manifesting  the  style  ot 
a  conqueror,  a,  despot,  rather  than  a  constitutional  king. 
Joab's  expostulation  on  the  occasion,  intimates  some  such 
difficulty ;  for  he  takes  pains  to  remind  David  that  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  land  are  equally  the  king's  servants ;  why 
then  doth  my  Lord  require  this  thing  ?  why  will  he  be  a 
cause  of  trespass  to  Israel  ?  Any  such  bondage  of  service 
as  the  Israelites  had  endured  in  Egypt,  if  laid  upon  the 
strangers  in  Israel,  would  have  been  contrary  to  the  divine 
law.  They  were  to  be  tributaries  to  the  government,  but 
not  personal  servants,  except  at  their  own  pleasure.  To  treat 
them  with  cruelty,  or  make  them  the  subjects  of  oppression 
such  as  the  people  of  God  had  endured  in  Egypt,  was  ex- 
plicitly and  many  times  forbidden.  They  could  not  be  treated 
as  the  king's  or  any  man's  property,  they  could  not  be  made 
slaves ;  no  service  was  ever  to  be  laid  upon  them,  which  would 
take  away  their  rights  as  freemen. 

Michaelis,  in  his  Commentaries  'on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  (vol. 
ii.,  page  185,)  presents  a  Jewish  Rabbinical  story,  illustrative 


190  DEFEAUDING    OF   WAGES. 

of  the  oppression  of  taking  men's  labor  without  wages.  The 
Egyptians  (so  the  Jews  relate,)  sued  the  Jews  for  the  gold 
and  silver  vessels  carried  off  by  their  ancestors  at  their  de- 
parture from  Egypt,  (the  transaction  of  borrowing,)  and  in- 
sisted on  their  making  restitution.  One  should  suppose  that 
the  Jews  would  have  pleaded  the  law  of  prescription.  But 
they  did  no  such  thing.  They  readily  admitted  the  claim,  and 
offered  restitution ;  but  they  at  the  same  time  preferred  a 
counter-claim  of  their  own.  For  two  hundred  and  ten  years, 
said  they,  we  were  in  Egypt,  to  the  number  of  600,000  men. 
We  therefore,  demand  days'  wages  for  that  period,  at  the 
rate  of  a  denarius  for  each  man ;  and  our  account  stands 
thus:  365x210=76,650  days,  the  time  of  each  man.  This 
multiplied  by  600,000  men,  gives  of  denarii,  45,990,000,000, 
that  is,  of  our  money,  two  thousand  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  millions  of  ducats.  On  this  the  Egyptians  began  to  wax 
warm,  and  dropped  their  suit. 

If  a  bill  of  this  nature  were  made  out  by  the  four  millions 
of  slaves  in  our  country,  who  could  compute  the  amount  of 
our  robbery  of  their  just  wages?  But  God  has  calculated  it, 
and  in  good  time  will  send  in  his  bill  for  settlement.* 


*  GRANVILLE  SIIARPE.  Law  of  cessity  of  its  abolition  by  the  Stato 
Retribution  against  Tyrants,  Slave-  becomes  more  and  more  urgent,  be- 
holders, and  Oppressors.  Compare  cause  of  the  future,  and  WIIEWELL 
SIR  JAMES  MACKINTOSH'S  speech  in  (Vol.  II.,  1003.  Duty  of  Abolition  by 
the  case  of  the  Missionary  Smith,  the  State)  notes  that  "a  State  cannot 
"Works,  VoL  III.,  p.  405.  Compare,  neglect  this,  without  divesting  itself, 
also,  WIIEWELL,  Elements  of  Morali-  to  an  extent  shocking  to  ah1  good  men, 
ty,  and  DYMOND,  Essays,  ch.  xviii.  of  its  moral  character,  and  renounc- 
"  Every  hour  of  every  day  the  present  ing  its  hope  of  that  moral  progress 
possessor  is  guilty  of  injustice."  The  which  is  (ought  to  be)  its  highest 
guilt  of  rendering  the  crime  hereditary  purpose."  Compare  GOODELL,  Ameri- 
no  man  has  attempted  to  compute,  can  Slave  Code.  Ownership  and  use 
God  only  can  measure  it.  The  ne-  without  wages.  Part  I.,  ch.  v.,  10, 12 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

JUDGMENT  or  GOD  AGAINST  SLAVERY  IN  EGYPT. — COMPARISON  WITH  THE  BONDAGE  OP 
THK  HELOTS. — THE  EXODUS  OP  ISRAEL  FROM.U. — THE  MIXED  MULTITUDE. — THE 
LAW  OF  THE  PA88OVK.R. — ItELIGlOUS  PRIVILEGES  OP  SERVANTS. — LAW  OF  TUB  SAB- 
BATU. — PERVBUSION  OF  TERMS. — THE  YEAH. — SABBATHS,  AND  ANNUAL  FEASTS. 

THE  first  moral  judgment  of  God  concerning  the  slavery  of 
Egypt  was  impressed  upon  the  mind  of  Abraham  in  the  cove- 
nant which  God  made  with  him  :  "Know  of  a  surety  that  thy 
seed  shall  be  a  stranger  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs,  and 
they  shall  serve  them,  dinar;;  and  they  shall  afflict  them,  sfisn; 
and  also  that  nation  whom  they  shall  serve  will  I  judge."  The 
moral  sense  of  Abraham  was  sufficiently  enlightened  to  know 
that  not  simply  because  the  subjects  of  oppression  were  of  his 
seed,  was  such  oppression  sinful,  but  that  the  bondage,  unless 
inflicted  of  God  as  a  punishment  for  sin,  was  itself  sinful.  The 
slavery  prevalent  in  Egypt  is  here  condemned  as  a  crime 
worthy  to  be  punished. 

The  first  historical  description  of  it,  after  this  prophetic 
judgment,  is  in  Exodus,  i.  11 :"  They  did  set  over  them  task- 
masters, to  afflict  them  with  their  burdens,"  Tia?  -jyteV.  trBfc  •Ky, 
cr'jros,  overseers  of  tribute,  on  purpose  for  their  oppression  in 
their  burdens.  "And  the  Egyptians  made  the  children  of  Is- 
rael to  serve  with  rigor,  and  they  made  their  lives  bitter  with 
hard  bondage,  rrie|?T  n^bsa,  hard  labor,  in  mortar  and  in  brick, 
and  in  all  manner  of  service  in  the  field  ;  all  their  service 
wherein  they  made  them  serve  was  with  rigor,"  Exodus,  i.  13, 
14.  Now  therefore  behold  the  cry  of  the  children  of  Israel  is 
come  unto  me  :  and  I  have  also  seen  the  oppression,  yhV,  where- 
with the  Egyptians  oppress  them,  Exodus,  iii.  9.  The  same 


192 


HELOTTSM   OF    EGYPT. 


word  is  used  in  Exodus,  xxiii.  9 :  "  Thou  shalt  not  oppress  a 
stranger."  This  dreadful  bondage  was  a  type  of  the  slavery 
of  sin  ;  as  also  the  passover,  in  memory  of  their  deliverance, 
was  a  most  affecting  and  powerfully  significant  type  of  re- 
demption by  the  blood  of  Christ. 

This  bondage,  continued,  would  have  become  a  JTelotism, 
and  was  fast  verging  to  a  system  of  perpetuated  oppression 
and  cruelty,  like  that  described  by  historians  as  having  been 
endured  by  the  unhappy  conquered  victims  of  despotism  in 
the  Spartan  state.  It  might  have  been  all  that,  and  still  at  a 
great  remove  from  the  dehumanizing  cruelty  of  American 
slavery.* 

•were  a  part  of  the  State,  "  having  their 
domestic  and  social  sympathies  devel- 
oped, a  certain  power  of  acquiring 
property,  and  the  consciousness  of 
Grecian  lineage  and  dialect." 

Deprived  of  their  liberty,  oppressed 
and  maltreated,  they  were  dreaded  by 
their  tyrants,  who  adopted  measures 
against  them,  to  prevent  their  in- 
crease and  insurrection,  singularly  re- 
minding us  of  the  policy  of  Pharaoh 
and  the  princes  of  Egypt  towards  the 
Hebrews.  The  terror  of  Helotic  re- 
volt sharpened  the  cruelty  of  the 
Spartans,  and  led  them  to  "  combina- 
tions of  cunning  and  atrocity,  which 
even  yet  stand  without  parallel  in  the 
long  list  of  precautions  for  fortifying 
unjust  dominion."  On  the  authority 
of  Thucydides  we  learn  that  on  one 
occasion  two  thousand  of  the  bravest 
among  the  Helots  were  entrapped  by 
promises  of  liberty,  and  assassinated 
at  once.  On  the  authority  of  Plu- 
tarch, from  Aristotle,  it  was  an  insti- 
tution of  tho  State,  that  every  year 
war  should  bo  declared  against  the 
Helots,  "  in  order  that  the  murder  of 
them  might  be  rendered  innocent ;" 


*  GEOTE'S  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  voL 
iL,  pp.  3  7  2-3  7  9.  Helots  in  the  Til- 
lages. 

The  condition  of  the  Helots  under 
the  tyranny  of  Sparta,  treated  like 
slaves,  yet  never  sold  out  of  the  coun- 
try, and,  probably,  never  sold  at  all ; 
beaten,  down-trodden,  put  to  death 
without  punishment  of  their  murder- 
ers, yet  belonging  not  so  much  to  the 
master  as  to  tho  State ;  "  living  in  the 
rural  villages  as  adscripts  gkba,  culti- 
vating their  lands,  and  paying  over 
their  rent  to  the  master  at  Sparta,  but 
enjoying  their  homes,  wives,  families 
and  mutual  neighborly  feelings  apart 
from  the  master's  view;" — this  con- 
dition would  represent  much  more 
nearly  the  state  of  the  Hebrews  un- 
der their  Egyptian  bondage,  and 
would  give  a  fairer  idea  of  their  op- 
pression, than  can  be  drawn  from 
modern  slavery.  The  Helots  were  a 
conquered  race.  The  word,  accord- 
ing to  some  etymologists,  is  synony- 
mous with  captive  ;  according  to  oth- 
ers, derived  from  the  town  of  Helos, 
"  which  the  Spartans  are  said  to  have 
taken  after  a  resistance  so  obstinate 
as  to  provoke  them  to  deal  very  rig- 
orously with  the  captives."  They 


and  that    "  active  young    Spartans 
should  be  armed  with  daggers  and 


THE  EXODUS  FROM  SLAVERY. 


193 


Out  of  this  bondage,  when  God  delivered  them,  they  went 
up,  "  about  six  hundred  thousand  men,  on  foot,  besides  chil- 
dren ;  and  a  mixed  multitude  went  up  also  with  them,  and 
flocks,  and  herds,  very  much  cattle,"  Exodus,  xii.  37,  38.  The 


sent  about  Laconia,  either  in  solitude 
or  at  night,  to  assassinate  such  of  the 
Helots  as  were  considered  formid- 
able." 

How  long  it  may  be  before  the  in- 
comparably more  atrocious  and  crimi- 
nal system  of  American  slavery,  with 
the  frightful  increase  and  intelligence 
of  its  victims,  may  lead  to  similar  hor- 
rible combinations  on  the  part  of  mas- 
ters and  of  the  government,  and  simi- 
lar assassinations,  sanctioned  by  law, 
under  pretense  of  the  necessity  of  self- 
defense  from  the  apprehended  horrors 
of  a  servile  insurrection,  is  only  known 
to  that  God  whose  own  vengeance 
merely  waits  the  justest  and  most 
perfect  time.  Meanwhile,  the  pro- 
posed reduction  of  the  free  blacks  in- 
to slavery,  the  doctrine  practiced  as 
an  edict,  that  black  men  have  no 
rights  that  white  men  are  bound  to 
respect,  the  renewal  and  intended 
sanction  of  the  foreign  slave-trade  by 
law,  the  proposed  establishment  of 
slavery  in  free  territories,  and  enact- 
ment by  the  government  of  a  special 
code  of  slave  laws  for  the  protection 
and  perpetuity  of  slave-property,  in 
addition  to  the  savage  barbarity  of 
existing  State  slave  codes,  make  the 
crime  and  guilt  of  this  Christian  peo- 
ple incomparably  greater  than  any 
ever  committed  by  the  government 
or  people  of  Sparta,  or  any  other  pa- 
gan nation  in  the  world.  What  we 
think  to  sanction,  and  defend  from 
Heaven's  reprobation,  and  commend 
as  duty  to  Christian  families  and 
churches  by  human  law,  is  a  far 
greater  outrage  of  the  conscience,  and 


defiance  against  God  and  nature,  than 
the  law  of  war  against  the  Helots  on 
purpose  for  the  sanction  of  their  mur- 
der. 

The  manumitted  Helots,  those  who 
had  gained  their  liberty  by  signal 
bravery,  and  tliose  whose  superior 
beauty  or  stature  placed  them  above 
the  visible  stamp  of  their  condition, 
were  regarded  in  the  Lacedemonian 
community  with  peculiar  apprehen- 
sion, and  if  not  put  to  death,  were 
employed  on  foreign  service,  or  plant- 
ed on  some  foreign  soil  as  settlers. 
The  intervention  of  colonization  socie- 
ties as  safety  valves  for  the  security 
of  slave  property  in  this  country,  had 
not  been  suggested,  neither  does  it 
seem  to  have  been  the  custom  to  im- 
prison the  subjects  of  such  tyranny 
and  jealousy,  and  then  sell  them  for 
their  jail  fees.  But  it  is  stated  that 
the  Helots  "  were  beaten"  every  year, 
without  any  special  fault,  in  order  to 
put  them  in  mind  of  their  slavery; 
while  such  masters  as  neglected  to 
keep  down  the  spirit  of  their  vigorous 
Helots  were  punished." 

Slave-breeding  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  an  element  of  the  Spartan 
chivalry,  nor  an  employment  of  the 
first  families,  or  oldest  and  most  aris- 
tocratic class  of  the  State.  The  sell- 
ing of  slaves  not  being  customary, 
the  breeding  of  them  for  high  prices 
never  came  to  bo  a  profitable  busi- 
ness. Indeed,  in  this  quality  of  glory, 
this  feat  of  mammon  and  of  morals, 
the  Christian  slave  States  of  America 
surpass  the  accomplishments  of  any 
other  age  or  nation  in  the  world. 


194  THE   MIXED   MULTITUDE. 


mixed  multitude,  atja^?,  are  nowhere  definitely  described.  The 
question  whether  they  had  bond-servants  of  their  own,  whom 
they  carried  away  with  them  from  Egypt,  might  possibly  be 
settled  could  we  have  a  classification  of  that  mixed  multitude. 
On  the  whole,  it  seems  not  probable  that  any  Egyptians  were 
under  bond-service  to  them,  and  their  own  race  were  certainly 
not  slaves  to  one  another,  though  they  might  be  servants.  If 
they  had  foreign  servants,  not  of  their  own  race,  we  judge 
(from  the  manner  of  the  enumeration  in  a  similar  case,  namely, 
the  return  of  the  Jews  from  the  captivity  in  Babylon),  it 
would  have  been  distinctly  stated.  In  Ezra,  ii.  64,  65,  and 
Nehemiah,  vii.  66,  67,  as  already  noted,  the  number  of  the 
whole  congregation  of  Israel,  is  first  given,  as  in  Exodus,  and 
then  it  is  added,  "  besides  their  men-servants  and  their  maid- 
servants, of  whom  there  were  seven  thousand  three  hundred 
and  thirty-seven."  The  whole  number  of  the  people  to  be 
cared  for  and  to  be  fed,  are  again  mentioned  by  Moses  in 
Numbers,  xi.  21,  as  six  hundred  thousand  footmen,  no  refer- 
ence being  made  to  any  others  than  those  named  in  the  first 
census.  The  mixed  multitude,  also,  are  again  referred  to  in 
the  same  chapter  by  themselves  :  "  The  mixed  multitude  that 
was  among  them  fell  a  lusting,"  Numbers,  xi.  4  ;  but  no  refer- 
ence is  found  to  the  servants  among  them. 

In  regard  to  this  point,  it  is  impossible  to  determine  abso- 
lutely from  the  law  of  the  passover,  because  that  law  looked 
to  the  future  condition  of  the  congregation,  providing  for  fu- 
ture emergencies.  No  uncircumcised  stranger  might  eat  of 
the  passover  ;  but  every  man's  servant,  bought  for  money  and 
circumcised,  might  eat  of  it.  The  uncircumcised  foreigner 
and  hired  servant  might  not  eat  of  it  ;  and  both  the  home- 
born  and  the  stranger  were  under  one  and  the  same  law  in  re- 
gard to  it,  Exodus,  xii.  43-49  ;  Numbers,  ix.14  .  The  servant 
bought  for  money  was  bought  into  the  Lord's  family  ;  he  was, 
in  point  of  fact,  redeemed  from  bondage  into  comparative  free- 
dom, taken  under  God's  especial  care,  and  from  a  system  of 


RELIGIOUS   PRIVILEGES   OF   SERVANTS.  195 

lawless  slavery,  passed  into  a  system  of  responsibility  to  God, 
both  on  the  part  of  the  master  and  on  his  own  part.  It  was 
a  change  of  amazing  mercy,  from  hopeless  heathenish  bond- 
age to  the  dignity  of  citizenship  in  the  commonwealth  of 
Israel. 

RELIGIOUS   PRIVILEGES   OF  SERVANTS. — LAW   OF  THE   SABBATH. 

After  the  law  of  the  passover,  the  first  indication  looking  to 
the  condition  of  servants  is  in  the  law  of  the  Sabbath,  Exodus, 
xx.  10  :  "Thou  shalt  not  do  any  work ;  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor 
thy  daughter,  thy  man-servant^  nor  thy  maid-servant,  tfr^K} 
Tf^a?."  This  was  a  provision  unheard  of  in  the  world,  a  pro- 
vision necessary  for  the  religious  privileges  and  freedom  of 
those  under  servitude,  a  provision  which  alone,  if  there  had 
been  no  other,  would  have  separated  the  condition  of  servants 
and  the  system  of  menial  service,  among  the  Hebrews,  from 
that  among  any  other  people  on  earth,  raising  it  to  a  partici- 
pation in  the  care  and  sanction  of  God,  and  transfiguring  it  with 
social  dignity  and  liberty.  Such  would  be  the  effect  of  the 
Sabbath,  fully  observed  according  to  its  intent  and  precept, 
upon  the  system  of  labor  and  the  condition  of  the  laboring 
man,  all  the  world  over ;  for  the  Sabbath  is  the  master-key  to 
all  forms  and  means  of  social  regeneration,  freedom,  and  hap- 
piness. But  it  was  a  new  thing  in  the  world  for  the  leading, 
governing  gift,  privilege,  and  institution  of  instruction,  refine- 
ment, and  piety  to  be  conferred  upon  the  poor  as  well  as  the 
rich ;  upon  the  serving  and  laboring  classes  equally  with  the 
ruling ;  and  appointed  as  directly  and  on  purpose  for  the  en- 
joyment and  benefit  of  the  one  class  as  of  the  other.  The 
work  of  the  transfiguration  of  the  toil  and  bondage  into  a  sys- 
tem of  free  and  voluntary  service,  carefully  defined,  protected, 
and  rewarded,  adopted  and  adorned  of  God  with  all  the  equal- 
izing religious  rights  flowing  from  a  theocracy  to  the  whole 
people ;  this  work,  thus  begun  in  the  appointment  of  the  Sab- 
bath, was  carried  on,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  same  spirit,  and 


196  THE   SON    OF   THINE   HANDMAID. 

with  the  same  purpose,  in  all  additional  regulations,  till  society, 
in  this  its  normal  form,  became  (as  it  would  have  continued,  in 
reality,  if  the  appointed  form  had  been  carried  out)  a  fit  type 
of  the  Christian  dispensation  to  come,  "  where  there  is  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision,  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bond  nor  free ;  but  Christ  all  and  in  all,"  Colossians, 
iii.  11,  and  Galatians,  iii.  28.  Such  an  institution  of  free  and 
willing  service,  guarded  by  the  law  as  an  integral  portion  of  a 
free  and  happy  state,  was  preparing  and  molding,  by  divine 
command,  and  in  form  was  perfected,  as  should  not  need  to  be 
put  away  or  unclothed,  at  Christ's  coming,  but  was  fitted  to 
be  clothed  upon  with  his  Spirit,  and  sanctioned  by  his  benedic- 
tion. This  was  to  take  the  place  of  slavery,  was  to  put  slavery 
out  of  existence ;  andj  wherever  and  whenever  the  oppressed 
of  other  communities  should  be  gathered  beneath  its  opera- 
tion, was  to  make  freemen  of  slaves. 

There  is  a  striking  particularity  in  one  of  the  repetitions  of 
the  law  of  the  Sabbath,  Exodus,  xxiii.  12,  where  the  servile 
classes  specified  in  the  first  normal  form  are  omitted,  and  the 
pui'pose  of  the  Sabbath's  rest  is  stated  to  be  "  that  the  son  of 
thine  handmaid,  and  the  stranger,  may  be  refreshed."  Here 
the  expression,  "son  of  thine  handmaid,"  is  ^r^x— )s,  the  same 
as  used  in  Psalm  cxvi.  16,  of  David:  "I  am  thy  servant,  and 
the  son  of  thine  handmaid.'1''  I  am  not  a  servant,  but  thy 
servant,  and  the  son  of  thine  handmaid.  The  son  of  the 
handmaid,  in  Exodus,  xxiii.  12,  is  catalogued  in  the  same  class 
and  standing  with  the  free  stranger ;  and  the  passage  is  cer- 
tainly, in  some  measure,  a  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the  ex- 
pressions, ^B— )5  and  rpa— T>^,  Genesis,  xv.  3;  xvii.  12,  13; 
Leviticus,  xxiii.  11;  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  7;  and  Jeremiah,  ii.  14. 
These  expressions,  so  far  from  indicating  slaves,  as  the  assump- 
tions and  perverse  interpretations  of  some  lexicographers  and 
translators  might  lead  the  English  reader  to  suppose,  do  not 
necessarily  even  mean  servants,  but  are  a  form  of  expression 
purposely  separate  and  different  from  the  generic  appellation 


FREE   SERVANTS    OF   THE   HOUSE.  19Y 

for  servants,  because  they  intimated  a  relation  to  the  master, 
and  the  family  which  was  not  that  of  servants.  The  condi- 
tion of  the  child  did  not  follow  that  of  the  parent ;  but,  after 
the  period  of  natural  dependence  and  minority,  the  rra— isa 
and  the  rps  "^V?,  the  sons  of  the  house,  and  the  born  of  the 
house,  or  home-born,  were  their  own  masters,  free  to  choose 
for  themselves  the  master  whom  they  would  serve,  and  the 
terms  on  which  they  would  serve  him.  This  is  susceptible  of 
demonstration  beyond  possibility  of  denial  in  regard  to  chil- 
dren of  Hebrew  descent,  because  not  even  the  parents  could, 
bylaw,  be  kept  as  sei'vants  longer  than  six  years;  and,  of 
course,  the  children,  being  Hebrews  equally  with  the  parents, 
and  coming  under  the  same  law,  could  no  more  be  so  held 
than  the  parents  themselves. 

This  shows  how  monstrous  is  the  assumption  and  perversion 
of  the  lexicons,  beginning  with  the  fans  et  origo  of  modern 
interpretation,  that  of  Gesenius,  when  they  deliberately,  and 
without  one  particle  of  proof,  render  these  expressions  by  the 
Latin  word,  verna,  followed  by  English  translators  with  the 
word  slave.  Neither  by  periphrasis,  nor  literal  signification, 
can  these  expressions  be  so  interpreted ;  never,  in  any  case, 
in  which  they  are  used.  And  if  the  literal  interpretation  had, 
in  every  case,  been  adhered  to,  sons  of  the  house  and  born  of 
the  house,  instead  of  the  word  slave,  employed  in  the  lexi- 
cons, or  servant,  which  is  mostly  used  in  our  translation,  no 
one  could  have  connected  the  idea  of  servitude  with  these 
expressions,  much  less  the  idea  of  slavery.  For  example,  the 
literal  translation  of  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  7,  is  thus :  "  I  obtained 
servants  and  maidens,  and  there  were  to  me  sons  of  the  house," 
^  rrn  rra— >sa*i,  a  relationship  of  dependence,  certainly,  and 
showing  wealth  and  perpetuity  in  the  family,  whose  servants 
were  not  hirelings  merely,  but  voluntary  domestic  fixtures, 
of  choice  as  well  as  dependence;  but  not  a  relationship  of 
compulsory  servitude,  or  slavery,  or  of  servants  considered  as 
property.  Now  the  transfer  of  the  degrading  and  infamous 


1  98  PROOF    OF    DIVINE   INSPIRATION. 

chattelism  signified  in  the  Latin  word  verna  and  the  English 
word  slave  to  such  a  relationship,  and  to  the  phrase  son  of  the 
house,  or  born  of  the  house,  as  its  true  meaning  among  the 
Hebrews,  is  one  of  the  most  unauthorized  and  outrageous 
perversions  ever  inflicted  upon  human  language.  It  is  almost 
blasphemous,  as  designed  to  fix  the  blot  and  infamy  of  slavery 
upon  what  was  and  is  the  noblest,  most  benevolent,  most  care- 
fully guarded,  freest,  and  most  affectionate  system  of  domes- 
tic service  in  the  world. 

It  is  a  system  of  such  freedom  and  benevolence,  and  so  in- 
geniously designed  and  adapted  to  conquer  every  surrounding 
and  prevailing  form  of  slavery,  and  subdue  it  to  itself,  that  its 
infinite  superiority  to  the  selfish  law  and  oppressed  condition 
of  the  world,  and  its  enthronement  of  benevolence  instead  of 
power  as  the  ruling  impulse  and  object  (in  that  part  of  social 
legislation  especially,  where  the  law  and  custom  of  mankind 
have  made  selfishness  not  only  supreme,  but  just,  expedient, 
and  even  necessary,)  are  something  supernatural.  The  con- 
trast and  opposition  of  this  system  over  against  the  creed  and 
habit  of  power,  luxury,  oppressive  selfishness,  and  slavery,  so 
long  prevalent  without  question  of  its  right,  is,  by  itself,  an 
impregnable  proof  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Pentateuch. 
It  is  a  proof,  the  shining  and  the  glory  of  which  have  been 
clouded  and  darkened  by  the  anachronisms,  prejudices,  and 
misinterpretations  of  Biblical  archffiologists  and  translators, 
but  which  is  destined  to  be  yet  cleared,  and  acknowledged  by 
the  Christian  world  with  gratitude  to  God.  We  shall  at  length 
cease  to  look  to  Arab  or  Egyptian  sheikhs  and  pashas  for 
illustrations  of  the  life  of  Abraham,  and  to  Roman  or  Amer- 
ican slaves  for  pictures  of  the  Hebrew  households. 

THE  TEAK  SABBATH  AND  THE  ANNUAL  FEASTS. 

But  besides  the  weekly  Sabbath  of  devotion,  every  seven 
years  the  land  should  keep  a  Sabbath  of  a  whole  year  unto 
the  Lord,  the  seventh  year,  a  Sabbath  of  rest  for  the  land, 


TIME   FOE    BEST   AND   LEISUKE.  199 

and,  in  consequence,  for  all  classes  of  servants :  "  And  the 
Sabbath  of  the  land  shall  be  meat  for  you ;  for  thee,  and  for 
thy  servant,  and  for  thy  maid,  and  for  thy  hired  servant,  and 
for  thy  stranger  that  sojourneth  with  thee,"  Leviticus,  xxv. 
27.  Here  the  nas>,  the  servant  of  all  work,  the  ros«,  the  maid- 
servant, and  the  "PS»,  the  hired  servant,  are  all  specified ;  the 
seventh  year  belongs  to  them  as  well  as  to  their  masters.  In 
Exodus,  xxiii.  11,  12,  these  two  institutions  of  the  year-sab- 
bath and  the  seventh-day  Sabbath  are  coupled,  and  the  pur- 
pose specified  is  that  of  rest  and  refreshment  "  for  the  son  of 
thine  handmaid  and  the  stranger,"  nan}  ^MSK— ^B.  Here  are 
already  two  sevenths  of  the  time  of  life  guarantied  to  the  serv- 
ants for  rest  and  sacred  discipline.  The  injunction  of  a  cir- 
cumspect piety  is  added  to  the  enactment  of  both  these  or- 
dinances. 

Then  in  the  same  chapter,  the  three  great  annual  feasts  fol- 
low, enacted  in  order,  Exodus,  xxiii.  14-17,  these  enactments 
being  drawn  out  with  minute  detail  and  precision  in  Deuter- 
onomy, xvi.  2-16,  and  they  are  designated  as  the  Feast  of 
Unleavened  Bread,  the  Feast  of  Weeks,  and  the  Feast  of  Tab- 
ernacles. In  Exodus,  xxxiv.  21-23,  the  weekly  Sabbath  and 
these  three  annual  festivals  are  coupled  in  the  same  manner 
as  the  Sabbath  and  the  seventh  year  of  rest  in  Exodus,  xxiii. 
The  spirit  of  these  festivals  and  their  duration  are  described 
in  Deuteronomy,  xvi.,  and  Leviticus,  xxiii.  34-43.  And  the 
equalizing  benevolence  of  these  institutions  is  the  more  marked 
by  the  repetition  of  the  rule:  "Thou  shalt  rejoice  in  thy  feast, 
before  the  Lord  thy  God ;  thou,  and  thy  son,  and  thy  daugh- 
ter, and  thy  man-servant,  and  thy  maid-servant,  and  the  Le- 
vite  that  is  within  thy  gates,  and  the  stranger,  and  the  father- 
less, and  the  widow  that  are  among  you,"  Deuteronomy,  xvi. 
11.  Taking  into  consideration  the  time  necessary  for  going 
and  returning  to  and  from  each  of  these  great  festivals,  to- 
gether with  their  duration,  we  have  in  their  observance  some 
six  weeks,  or  nearly  another  seventh  of  the  whole  time  devot- 


200  ENJOYMENT   OF   SERVANTS. 

ed,  for  the  servants  as  well  as  the  masters,  to   religious  joy, 
and  rest  and  refreshment. 

Then,  in  addition,  are  to  be  reckoned  the  Feast  of  Trum- 
pets, Leviticus,  xxiii.  24,  the  Day  of  Atonement,  xxiii.  27-34, 
and  xvi.  29,  the  Feast  of  the  New  Moon,  Numbers,  xxviii.  11. 
Hosea,  ii.  11 ;  Ezekiel,  xlvi.  1,  3.  If  to  these  we  add  the  Feasts 
of  Purim  and  the  Dedication,  and  the  oft-recurring  joyous 
family  festivals,  1  Samuel,  xx.  6,  Genesis,  xxi.  8,  we  have  more 
than  three  sevenths,  or  nearly  one  half  the  time  of  the  serv- 
ants given  to  them  for  their  own  disposal  and  enjoyment, 
instruction  and  piety,  unvexed  by  servile  labors,  on  a  footing 
of  almost  absolute  equality  and  affectionate  familiarity  and 
kindness  with  the  whole  household :  father,  mother,  son, 
daughter,  man-servant  and  maid-servant,  all  having  the  same 
religious  rights  and  privileges — "  They  go  from  strength  to 
strength,  every  one  of  them  in  Zion  appearing  before  God." 
How  beautiful,  how  elevating,  how  joyous  was  such  a  national 
religion,  and  how  adapted  to  produce  and  renew  continually 
that  spirit  of  humility  and  love,  in  the  exercise  of  which  the 
whole  law  was  concentrated  and  fulfilled.* 


*SAALSCHTTTZ.  Das  Mosaische  Eecht.  which  he  was  released  from  his  mas- 
Laws  of  Moses,  VoL  II.,  715,  refers  to  ter,  if  he  choose  to  quit  the  service,  for 
the  appellation  of  the  Oak  of  Weeping,  he  could  escape  from  him,  and  the 
Gen.  xxxv.,  8,  given  on  occasion  of  whole  Hebrew  world  were  forbidden 
the  death  of  Rebecca's  nurse,  as  a  to  do  anything  towards  bringing  him 
proof  of  the  intimacy  and  affectionate  back,  but  were  bound  of  God  to  shel- 
equality  with  which  the  servants  en-  ter  the  fugitive.  In  all  the  earth  there 
tered  among  the  family  relationships  never  has  been  such  an  expression  of 
of  the  Hebrews.  SAALSCHUTZ  re-  kindness  in  human  law  towards  the 
marks  very  truly  that  nothing  more  oppressed  and  persecuted.  Compare 
felicitous  could  have  happened  to  a  GRAVES  on  the  Pentateuch,  P.  II., 
heathen  slave  than  to  have  been  sold  L.  iii.  Also.  LELAXD'S  Divine  Au- 
into  Judea,  where  a  law  prevailed,  thority  0.  andN.  T.,  75.  Also,  Judge 
leading,  central,  fundamental,  by  JAY  on  Hebrew  Servitude. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

TIMES  OF  SERVICE  OP  THE  HEBEEW  SERVANT. — JACOB'S  TIME  AND  WAGES  WITH  LA- 
BAN. — APPOINT. — OUTFIT  OF  THE  Six  YEARS'  SERVANT,  AT  THE  END  OF  His  AP- 
PRENTICESHIP.— WAGKS  OF  THE  SERVANT  CONSIDERED,  BUT  THE  PRICK  OF  A  MAN 
NEVER. — No  sucn  THING  RECOGNIZED  AS  THE  OWNER  op  A  MAN.— NOR  SERVANT 
WITHOUT  WAGES. — ONLY  CONDITION  ON  WHICH  THE  SERVANT  COULD  BE  KEPT 
TILL  THE  JUBILEE.— THE  TRANSACTION  VOLUNTARY,  THE  CONDITIONS  EXACT. — MAR- 
BIED  PERSONS  ENGAGING  AS  SERVANTS. — AVERAGE  TIME  OF  JUBILEE  CONTRACTS. 
— PENALTIES  AGAINST  CRUELTY  TO  SERVANTS. 

WE  have  seen  what  a  transfiguration  would  be  produced 
by  a  religious  and  legal  system,  that  gave  to  the  servants 
nearly  one  half  their  time  for  their  own  disposal,  in  the  observ- 
ance of  the  rites,  and  enjoyment  of  the  privileges  of  the  na- 
tional religion.  We  are  now  to  consider  the  times  of  service, 
and  the  manner  of  treatment,  both  for  Hebrew  and  heathen 
servants,  on  engagements  or  contracts,  always  voluntary,  and 
arranged  with  legal  exactness. 

TIME   AND  TREATMENT  OF  THE  HEBREW  SERVANT. THE   SIX 

YEARS'  CONTRACT. 

The  section  in  Exodus,  xxi.  2-11,  prescribing  the  time  and 
treatment  for  the  Hebrew  servant,  is  full  of  instruction  :  "If 
thou  buy  a  Hebrew  servant,  •»•£»  TSS  rnj;r[,  six  years  he  shall 
serve,  12?.";  and  in  the  seventh  he  shall  go  out  free  for  noth- 
ing," tah  ''tsEhV  NST  ;  his  term  of  service  expires,  and  he  is  free 
without  cost.  lie  had  himself  sold  his  own  time  and  labor  to 
his  master,  by  contract,  for  six  years — no  longer ;  and  this  was 
called  buying  a  Hebrew  servant.  Such  a  servant  was  not  the 
master's  property,  nor  is  ever  called  such,  although  he  might 
have  been  described  as  "  his  money ;"  that  is,  he  had  paid  in 
money  for  his  services,  for  so  long  a  time,  and,  in  that  sense, 


202       .  THE  SERVANT  IN  NO  SENSE  A  SLAVE. 

he  was  his  money,  but  in  no  other.  "We  have  already  noted 
the  usage  of  the  word  nspT,  to  buy ;  and  its  application  in  de- 
scribing the  purchase  of  persons  in  such  relations  as  to  forbid  the 
idea  of  property  or  slavery.  This  is  one  of  those  instances. 
The  Hebrew  servant  was  bought  with  money,  yet  he  was  in 
no  sense  a  slave,  or  the  property  of  his  master.  In  entering 
into  a  six  years'  contract  of  service,  he  was  said  to  have  sold 
himself;  yet  he  was  not  a  slave.  He  might  extend  this  con- 
tract to  the  longest  period  ever  allowed  by  law,  that  is,  to  the 
Jubilee ;  yet  still  he  was  not  property,  he  was  not  a  slave ; 
his  service  was  the  fulfillment  of  a  voluntary  contract,  for 
which  a  stipulated  equivalent  was  required,  and  given  to  him- 
self. The  reason  for  the  adoption  or  appointment  of  six  years 
for  the  ordinary  legal  contract  of  Hebrew  servitude  is  not 
given ;  but  doubtless  the  arrangement  was  based  upon  some 
previous  custom  or  statute ;  perhaps  some  social  law  like  that 
which  must  have  led  Jacob  to  propose  a  service  of  seven  years 
to  Laban  for  his  wife,  Genesis,  xxix.  18,  and  six  years  for  his 
cattle,  Genesis,  xxxii.  41.  "  Twenty  years  have  I  been  in  thy 
house ;  I  served  thee  fourteen  years  for  thy  two  daughters, 
and  six  years  for  thy  cattle."  The  period  of  service  with  the 
year  of  release,  thus  made  a  septennium,  a  week  of  years,  the 
multiplication  of  which  seven  times  brought  them  to  the  great 
Jubilee  of  universal  national  freedom,  equality  and  joy.* 

This  section  is  to  be  compared  with  Deuteronomy,  xv.  12— 
18:  If  thy  brother  be  sold,  that  is,  if  he  have  hired  himself 

*  It  is  worthy  of  note,  as  indicat-  upon  a  member  of  a  family,  much 

ing  the  general  moral  sense  of  the  so-  more  could  not  a  stranger  be  com- 

cial  circle  in  which  Abraham,  Isaac,  polled  into  such  service.  Laban's  man- 

and  Jacob  moved  as  patriarchal  legis-  ner  of  speaking  is  an  intimation  that 

lators,  that  even  in  Laban's  mind,  the  involuntary  and  unpaid  servitude  wa,«, 

idea  of  any  man  serving  another  with-  iu  their  society,  a  thing  unknown,  an 

out  wages  was  absurd,  not  to  say  enormity.      "  Because  thou   art  my 

immoral.      Even  a  brother,   a  near  brother,  shouldst  thou  serve  me  for 

kinsman  was  not  expected  to  do  this,  nought  ?    Tell  me,   what  shall  thy 

much  more  a  stranger ;  and  if  service  wages  be?"    Genesis,  xxix.  15. 
without  wages  could  not  be  imposed 


THE  SERVANTS  OUTFIT  OF  FREEDOM.         203 

to  thee,  and  serve  thee  six  years  ;  or  if  a  Hebrew  woman  do 
the  same;  then,  when  this  period  of  service  is  ended,  not 
only  is  he  free,  as  above,  but  thou  shalt  not  let  him  go  away 
empty.  Thou  shalt  furnish  him  liberally  out  of  thy  flock, 
and  out  of  thy  floor,  and  out  of  thy  wine-press.  This  extra- 
ordinary provision  of  an  outfit  was  some  offset,  and  was  in- 
tended to  be  such,  for  the  comparatively  low  wages  of  a  six 
years'  is?,  evedh,  or  servant,  as  compared  with  the  wages  of  a 
hired  servant,  by  the  year  or  by  the  day.  It  was  a  great  in- 
ducement to  continue  the  engagement  to  the  end  of  the  con- 
tract, and  not  be  seeking  another  master.  And  at  the  same 
time  it  is  enjoined  as  a  reason  why  the  master  should  be  lib- 
eral in  this  outfit,  that  he  has  gained  so  much  more  from  the 
labor  of  the  servant  in  six  years,  than  he  could  have  done  if 
he  had  contracted  with  him  as  a  "ptto  or  hired  servant.  The 
computation  is  made  as  follows :  He  hath  been  worth  a  double 
hired  servant,  in  serving  thee  six  years  ;  l-pa?.  'vsy  ">!=»  nitte, 
double  the  wages  of  a  hireling  serving  thee  ;  that  is,  if  thou 
hadst  hired  a  servant  by  the  year,  and  kept  him  six  years,  he 
would  have  cost  thee  twice  as  much  as  a  servant  whom  thou 
buyest  or  contractest  with,  for  six  years  at  a  time. 

AVERAGE   OF   WAGES. 

Suppose  that  for  a  six  years'  term  a  man  could  be  engaged 
for  eighteen  shekels ;  then  a  yearly  hired  servant  could  not 
be  got  for  less  than  six'shekels  the  year ;  it  would,  therefore, 
in  most  cases,  be  more  desirable  to  engage  a  six  years'  nay, 
evedh,  than  to  hire  by  the  year;  and,  notwithstanding  the  dif- 
ference in  price,  it  might,  in  many  cases,  be  more  desirable  for 
the  servant  also.  Micah,  in  the  case  recorded  in  Judges,  xvii., 
hired  a  young  Levite  from  Bethlehem  Judah,  to  dwell  with 
him  as  his  priest,  for  wages ;  and  he  gave  him  ten  shekels  of 
silver,  and  a  suit  of  apparel,  and  his  victuals,  by  the  year. 
There  are  no  such  examples  of  specific  contracts  with  ordinary 
servants  recorded ;  but  the  price  of  Joseph's  sale  to  the  mer- 


204  WAGES    OF   SERVANTS. 

chant-men  of  the  Midianites,  was  twenty  skekels  of  silver.  The 
sum  to  be  paid  when  a  man-servant  or  maid-servant  was 
gored  to  death  by  an  ox  was  thirty  shekels  of  silver  to  the 
master,  Exodus,  xxi.  32,  the  price,  perhaps,  of  a  six  years' 
contract.  The  price  of  the  prophet,  in  Zechariah,  xi.  12,  or 
the  hire  or  wages,  (•'"fit  is  the  word  used,)  at  which  he  and  his 
services  were  valued,  and  paid,  was  thirty  shekels  of  silver. 
The  redemption-price  for  a  man  who  had  vowed  himself  to 
the  Lord,  was  fifty  shekels  of  silver  from  twenty  years  of  age 
till  sixty ;  and  for  a  woman,  thirty  shekels ;  from  five  years  to 
twenty,  twenty  shekels  for  a  man,  ten  for  a  woman  ;  from  a 
month  to  five  years  old,  five  shekels  for  the  man-child,  three 
for  the  girl.  And  it  is  added,  from  sixty  years  old  and  above, 
fifteen  for  the  man,  ten  for  the  woman.  This  was  the  priest's 
estimation  of  the  persons  for  the  Lord,  Leviticus,  xxvii.  2-7. 
Now  this  seems  an  estimate  adopted  from  the  value  of  labor 
or  service  at  these  different  periods,  the  value  of  a  man's 
time  and  labor. 

ARGUMENT  FROil   WAGES. 

Now,  the  wages  of  a  man  as  a  servant  are  often  the  subject 
of  consideration  in  the  Scriptures,  but  the  price  of  a  man 
never.  There  is  no  such  idea  recognized  as  the  price  of  a 
servant  considered  as  property,  or  as  if  he  were  a  thing  of 
barter  and  sale :  his  owner  is  never  spoken  of;  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  the  owner  of  a  man,  and  no  such  quality  is  ever 
recognized  as  that  of  such  ownership.  When  the  recompense 
is  appointed  for  the  master  whose  servant  has  been  killed  by 
another's  ox,  it  is  the  master,  not  the  owner,  to  whom  the 
recompense  is  to  be  made,  as  master,  not  as  owner.  The 
words  employed  are  strikingly  different,  Exodus,  xxi.  32  :  If 
the  ox  shall  push  a  man-servant  or  maid-servant,  he  shall  give 
unto  their  master,  vj'i^V,  adhonai,  the  word  applied  to  Jehovah 
as  Lord.  But  Exodus,  xxi.  29,  34,  36,  if  the  ox  hath  been 
used  to  push,  or  if  a  pit  have  been  digged  and  not  covered, 


ARGUMENT  FKOM    WAGES.  205 

their  owner,  V>??,  baal,  shall  make  it  good.  The  selection  and 
appplication  of  the  words  are  emphatic.* 

There  was  no  servant  without  wages,  either  paid  before- 
hand, for  a  term  of  years,  or  paid  daily,  if  hired  by  the  day, 
or  annually,  as  the  case  might  be.  The  three  kinds  of  con- 
tract or  service,  and  of  corresponding  wages,  are  specified ; 
first,  generally,  Leviticus,  xix.  13,  the  wages  of  him  that  is  hired 
shall  not  abide  with  thee  all  night  until  morning,  "rtto  rbys , 
the  reward  of  the  hired  servant ;  second,  Job,  vii.  1,  his  days 
like  the  days  of  an  hireling;  third,  Leviticus,  xxv.  53,  as  a 
yearly  hired  servant;  fourth,  Exodus,  xxi.  2,  where  the  rule 
seems  referred  to  as  most  common,  of  a  six  years'  service  and 
contract.  There  was  no  indefiniteness  in  any  of  the  legal  pro- 
visions, no  difficulty  in  ascertaining  each  servant's  rights ;  and 
they  were  not  only  secured  by  law,  but  such  tremendous  de- 
nunciations were  added  in  the  prophets,  as  that  in  Jeremiah, 
xxii.  13  :  Woe  unto  him  that  useth  his  neighbor's  service  with- 

I 

out  wages,  and  giveth  him  not  for  his  work;  and  Malachi,  iii. 
5 : 1  will  be  a  swift  witness  against  those  who  defraud  the  hire- 
ling in  his  wages,  and  keep  the  stranger  from  his  right.  The 
stranger  comprehended  servants,  as  well  as  sojourners,  of  hea- 
then extraction. 

Now  when  the  recompense  of  thirty  skekels  was  ordained 
for  the  master,  whose  servant  had  been  gored  by  another 
man's  ox,  they  were  to  be  paid,  not  because  the  servant  was 
his,  as  property,  or  as  being  worth  that  price,  as  if  he  were  a 
slave,  a  chattel,  belonging  to  an  owner,  but  because  the  mas- 

*  JOSEPHUS'  ANTIQUITIES,  book  iv.,  hold  with  the  servants.    The  goods 

chap.  viii.  sec.  36.  The  discrimination  of  were  owned,  the  men  were  governed; 

Josephus  in  referring  to  these  laws  is  the  goods,  the  cattle,  were  chattels, 

emphatic.   He  applies  a  different  word  property ;  the  servants  were  persons, 

to  the  owner  of  the  cattle  and  the  men,   their  own  only  owners,   with 

master  of  the  servant ;  although  the  freedom  to  dispose  of  their  services 

difference  in  the  Greek  can  not  be  so  for  a  proper  and  just  equivalent  in 

strikingly  illustrative  of  the  distinction  wages.     The  description  in  Josephus 

in  the  original  between  the  owner  of  is  very  properly,  owner  of  the  cattle, 

property  and  the  master  of  a  house-  master  of  the  servants. 


206  CCXNTEACTS   AT   THE   SEKVAOT'S   PLEASURE. 

ter  had  paid  to  him  the  price  of  a  certain  number  of  years  of 
labor,  which  years  the  servant  owed ;  and  therefore  the  recom- 
pense was  for  the  loss  of  that  part  of  the  service  which  had 
been  paid  for,  but,  by  reason  of  death,  could  not  be  fulfilled. 
The  master  did  not  and  could  not  own  him,  in  any  case,  but 
only  had  a  claim  to  his  time  and  labor,  so  far  as  it  had  been 
contracted  and  paid  for.  It  must  have  been  paid  for  before- 
hand, because,  otherwise,  if  the  servant's  pay  had  not  been 
promised  till  after  the  time  of  the  contract,  the  master  would 
have  been  owing  the  servant  at  his  death,  and  could  have  no 
claim,  but  the  nearest  of  the  family  of  the  servant  would  have 
had  the  claim.  But  the  case  being  that  of  the  •»:??>,  the  six 
years'  hired  servant,  or  perhaps  the  servant  obtained  from 
among  the  heathen,  the  master  has  the  claim  for  services  which 
were  paid  for,  but  not  fulfilled. 

The  legal  term  of  service  for  six  years  could  not  be  length- 
ened, except  at  the  pleasure  of  the  servant.  The  man-servant 
and  the  maid-servant  were  equally  free  in  making  their  con- 
tracts ;  neither  of  them  could  be  held  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
master,  nor  could  be  disposed  of,  but  at  their  own  pleasure. 
They  were  perfectly  free,  except  so  far  as  by  their  own  act 
and  free  will  they  had  bound  themselves  for  an  equivalent  to 
a  term  of  service.  Under  certain  contingencies  they  could,  by 
law,  compel  their  master  to  keep  them,  but  he  could  never  use 
them  as  property,  never  make  merchandise  of  them,  never 
transfer  them  over  to  another.  If  a  maid-servant  chose  to 
contract  herself  to  her  master's  family,  in  such  manner  that  he 
on  his  part  could  keep  her  till  the  jubilee,  and  she  on  her  part 
could  forbid  his  sending  her  away,  then  both  herself  and  her 
children  were  to  remain  till  that  time.  The  covenant  was 
legal  and  explicit.  They  were  bound  to  him,  in  his  service, 
and  could  not  quit,  but  with  his  consent,  till  that  time.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  was  bound  to  them,  and  could  not  transfer 
them  to  another  family,  country,  or  household,  nor  any  one 
of  them,  nor  convey  their  service  to  any  other  person. 


CONTRACT   TILL   THE   JUBILEE.  207 


ONLY    CONDITION    ON    WHICH    THE    SERVANT    COULD    BE    KEPT 
TILL    JUBILEE. 

This  is  to  be  regarded,  in  examining  the  next  clause,  which 
states  the  one  only  condition  on  which  the  servant  could  be 
retained  by  the  master  until  the  jubilee.  If,  during  -his  period 
of  six  years'  service,  his  master  had  given  him  a  wife,  and  she 
had  borne  him  children,  then,  at  the  end  of  the  six  years,  he 
could  not,  in  quitting  his  master's  service,  compel  the  master 
to  relinquish  the  contract,  whatever  it  was,  which  had  given 
him  a  right  to  the  service  of  the  maid-servant,  his  wife,  for  a 
still  longer  period,  or  to  the  jubilee.  It  was  optional  with 
him  to  leave  his  wife  and  children  with  his  master,  and  go  out 
from  his  service  by  himself  alone,  or  he  could  stay,  and  with 
his  wife  and  children  engage  with  his  master  anew  until  the 
jubilee;  and  his  master  could  never  separate  the  family,  nor 
send  any  one  of  them  away,  nor  violate  any  of  the  terms  of 
the  contract ;  and  both  for  time  and  for  wages,  the  covenant 
was  at  the  pleasure  of  the  servant,  as  well  as  the  master,  and 
by  law  the  master  was  compelled  to  treat  him  as  a  Fi-fca  rt:«j 
"Pitt?:?,  as  a  yearly  hired  servant,  and  not  as  an  iw>,  or  servant 
of  all  times  and  all  work ;  as  a  servant  on  stipulated  monthly 
or  yearly  wages,  and  not  as  one  whose  whole  time  of  service 
until  the  jubilee  had  been  bargained  for  and  paid  for  in  the 
lump.  The  whole  covenant  was  determined  and  ratified  in 
court,  before  the  judges,  with  the  greatest  care  and  solemnity, 
on  the  affirmation  of  the  servant  that  he  loved  not  only  his 
wife  and  children,  but  his  master  also,  and  his  house,  and  was 
well  with  him,  (compare  Deuteronomy,  xv.  16,)  and  would  not 
go  away  from  him.  The  sign  of  the  covenant,  and  its  proof 
positive  and  incontrovertible,  so  that  neither  master  nor  serv- 
ant could  by  fraud  have  broken  it,  was  the  boring  of  the  ear, 
both  of  man-servant  and  maid-servant. 

This  transaction  was  entered  into  by  the  servant,  notwith- 
standing the  claim  of  a  liberal  outfit  from  his  master,  from  the 


208  POSITION   OF    SERVANTS. 

flock,  and  the  floor,  and  the  wine-press,  to  which  he  was  enti- 
tled by  law,  if  he  chose  to  leave  his  service.  The  receiving  a 
wife  from  his  master,  during  any  time  of  his  six  years'  service, 
was  also  at  the  servant's  own  pleasure ;  all  the  conditions  of 
such  marriage  being  perfectly  well  known  to  him,  the  dowry 
which  he  would  have  to  pay  for  his  wife,  if  he  remained  with 
her,  being  in  part  the  assuming  of  a  new  contract  of  service  with 
the  master,  as  long  as  hers  had  been  assumed,  or  to  the  jubilee. 
And  then,  they  and  their  children  would  go  from  his  service, 
with  all  the  property  they  had  been  able  to  acquire  by  their 
wages  and  privileges  in  his  household.  This,  if  they  had  been 
provident  and  sagacious  in  the  use  of  lawful  means  and  oppor- 
tunities, might  at  length  amount  to  an  important  sum.  The 
servant  might  become  possessor  of  a  competency,  during  a 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years'  sojourn  in  his  master's  family. 
And  the  servant  born  in  the  house,  his  son,  rra  T>*>^  the  home- 
born,  rns-' \sa»i,  or  of  the  sons  of  the  house,  might  become  his 
master's  heir,  as  in  the  household  of  Abraham ;  or  he  himself 
might  be  his  master's  steward,  with  all  'the  wealth  of  the  es- 
tablishment under  his  hand. 

The  position  of  such  an  13:?,  or  Hebrew  servant,  or  even 
heathen  servant,  as  in  the  case  of  Eliezer  of  Damascus,  might 
be  more  desirable  than  that  of  the  hired  servant  not  belong- 
ing to  the  family.  It  was  only  households  of  comparatively 
considerable  wealth  that  could  afford  to  enter  into  such  con- 
tracts with  their  servants,  or  to  keep  a  retinue  of  retainers 
born  in  the  house.  Hence  the  fact  of  having  such  a  class  of 
servants  is  referred  to  in  such  a  manner  as  proves  it  to  have 
been  esteemed  a  mark  of  greatness  and  prosperity,  Ecclesi- 
astes,  ii.  7.  And  these  domestic  servants,  born  in  the  family 
and  holding  by  law  such  a  claim  upon  it,  were  attached  to  it, 
and  its  members  to  them,  with  an  affection  and  kindness  like 
that  of  its  sons  and  daughters,  one  toward  another.  Perhaps 
the  passage  in  Jeremiah,  ii.  14,  may  be  rendered  with  refer- 
ence to  this  fact :  "  Is  Israel  a  servant,  i??  ?  If  a  home-born, 


SHESHAN  THE   EGYPTIAN.  209 

K,  why  is  he  a  spoil  ?"  How  should  he  be  carried  away 
and  made  a  prey,  if  he  belongs  to  the  household,  if  he  is  the 
home-born  of  his  God  ?  These  home-born  servants,  and  those 
whose  contract  of  service  lasted  beyond  the  six  years'  term 
of  ordinary  legal  indenture,  were  at  the  same  time  to  be 
treated  on  the  same  footing  with  the  hired  servants  and  so- 
journers,  with  the  same  careful  regard  to  all  their  rights  and 
privileges. 

In  connection  with  the  case  of  the  master  giving  his  servant 
a  wife,  the  instance  of  Sheshan  is  illustrative,  1  Chronicles, 
iii.  34,  35.  Sheshan  had  no  sons,  and  he  gave  one  of  his 
daughters  as  a  wife  to  one  of  his  household  servants  named 
Jarha,  an  Egyptian.  This  Egyptian  servant,  beyond  all  doubt, 
was  received  into  Sheshan's  service  on  the  legal  conditions 
laid  down  in  Leviticus,  xxv.,  on  a  contract  voluntary  and  for  a 
stipulated  equivalent.  There  is  not  the  slightest  indication  of 
his  ever  having  been  a  slave.  Egyptian  strangers  and  so- 
journers  among  the  Hebrews,  as  well  as  those  from  other 
nations,  often  sold  themselves  to  service  in  this  manner  in  the 
Holy  Land.  Yet  with  such  reckless  confidence  and  mistake, 
characterizing  the  assertions  of  too  many  commentators  on 
this  whole  subject,  it  is  asserted  in  Kitto's  Cyclopaedia,  article 
Sheshan,  that  Jarha  was  not  only  a  slave,  but  that  his  marriage 
took  place  while  the  children  of  Israel  were  thetnselves  in 
bondage  in  Egypt !  This  is  said,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
the  recorded  genealogy  of  Sheshan  demonstrates  that  he  and 
his  family  were  cotemporary  with  Boaz,  Obed,  and  Jesse,  being 
in  the  seventh  generation  in  direct  descent  from  Hezron,  the 
grandson  of  Judah. 

CONDITION   OF   MARRIED    SERVANTS  AND   THEIR   CHILDREN. 

There  is  no  other  instance,  save  this  in  Exodus,  xxi.  4,  (which 
is  plainly  mentioned  as  an  exception  to  a  general  rule,)  in 
which  any  claim  of  the  master  to  the  children  of  his  servants 
is  ever  iutimated.  The  home  born,  *V:B — i^\  and  the  sons  of 


210  NO  INVOLUNTARY   SERVITUDE. 

the  house,  rps~ >ia — though  in  subjection  to  him,  as  the  father 
of  the  family,  and  lord  of  the  household,  were  not  his  prop- 
erty, in  any  sense ;  and  because  he  had  a  servant-maid,  her 
children  were  not  on  that  account  his  servants,  except  by  a 
separate  specific  contract.  No  child,  whether  Hebrew  or 
heathen,  in  the  land  of  Judea,  was  born  to  involuntary  servi- 
tude, because  the  father,  or  mother,  or  both  were  servants; 
but  every  child  of  the  house  was  born  a  member  of  the  fam- 
ily, dependent  on  the  master  for  education  and  subsistence. 
If  married  persons  engaged  themselves  as  servants,  or  sold 
themselves,  according  to  Hebrew  phraseology,  then,  when  the 
six  years'  time  of  their  service  expired,  they  went  forth  free, 
and  their  children  with  them ;  there  was  never  any  claim 
upon  the  children  to  retain  them  merely  because  they  were 
rrs— • >is,  sons  of  the  house ;  but  their  parents  had  authority 
over  them,  and  possession  of  them.  The  phraseology  in  the 
case  before  us,  the  wife  and  her  children  shall  be  her  master 's, 
t^S'-iNc!  rr-ir  ^"""V-1  r"?*5"'  conveys  no  meaning  of  possession,  but 
simply  of  remaining  with  the  masterj  as  long  as  the  contract 
specified,  as  long  as  he  had  a  right  by  law  to  her  services. 
Inasmuch  as  she  herself  was  not,  and  could  not  be,  her  mas- 
ter's, except  only  by  voluntary  contract,  for  a  price  paid  to 
herself,  and  for  a  time  specified,  neither  could  the  children  be 
her  masters. 

The  only  Avay  in  which  he  could  give  her  to  her  husband 
to  be  his  wife  was,  (1)  either  by  paying  to  her  father  the  dow- 
ry required,  and  so  purchasing  her  for  a  wife  for  his  servant, 
in  which  case  he  would  have  a  claim  upon  his  or  her  services 
or  both,  additional  to  the  amount  of  that  dowry ;  or  (2)  she 
was  his  maid-servant  already  according  to  the  ordinary  or  ex- 
traordinary legal  contract,  for  the  six  years,  Deuteronomy, 
xvi.  12,  or  for  the  time  from  the  making  of  a  new  contract, 
till  the  jubilee,  Deuteronomy,  xvi.  17,  and  as  such  he  gives 
her  in  marriage.  In  either  case,  she  being  bound  to  him  for  a 
longer  time  than  her  husband,  her  children  would,  of  right, 


MARRIED   SERVANTS    AND    CHILDREN.  211 

and  by  law,  remain  with  her,  under  subjection  in  her  master's 
household,  and  could  not  be  taken  away  by  the  father,  if  he 
chose  to  quit.  The  children  could  not  be  taken  from  their 
parents,  but  after  a  certain  age  they  were  at  liberty  to  choose 
their  own  masters,  and  to  make  their  own  terms  of  service. 
This  resulted  inevitably  from  the  law  limiting  and  defining 
the  period  of  service  in  every  case  ;  even  when  until  the  ju- 
bilee, still,  most  absolutely  and  certainly  defined  and  limited 
by  that.  There  was  nothing  left  indefinite,  and  no  room  for 
the  assumption  of  arbitrary  power,  so  long  as  the  provisions 
of  the  law  were  complied  with.  And  it  was  the  breaking  of 
those  provisions,  and  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  masters 
to  force  their  servants  into  involuntary  servitude,  and  so 
change  the  whole  domestic  system  of  the  state  from  freedom 
to  slavery,  that,  by  the  immediate  wrath  of  God  in  conse- 
quence, swept  the  whole  country  into  a  foreign  captivity,  and 
consigned  the  people  to  the  sword,  the  pestilence,  and  the 
famine,  Jeremiah,  xxxiv,  17.  The  horror  with  which  any  ap- 
proximation again  towards  any  infraction  of  the  great  law  of 
liberty,  was  regarded,  after  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  that 
retributive  captivity,  is  manifested  in  Nehemiah,  v.  5,  and  is 
instructive  and  illustrative. 

AVERAGE  TIME   OF   THE   LONGEST   SERVICE. 

Let  us  now  see  what  would  be  the  actual  operation  of  the 
exceptional  contract  in  Exodus,  xxi.  4-6,  running  on  to  the 
jubilee.  That  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  term  for  ever,  in  the 
terms  of  this  contract,  is  not  disputed,  and  is  incontrovertible 
from  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  40,  the  law  of  the  jubilee  overriding 
all  others  and  repressing  all  personal  contracts  within  itself. 
At  the  recurrence  of  the  jubilee,  all  were  free.  Then,  after 
the  year  of  jubilee,  when  every  family  had  returned  to  its 
original  possessions,  new  engagements  were  necessarily  en- 
tered into  with  servants,  new  contracts  were  made.  It  does 
not  seem  likely  that,  at  the  outset,  any  indenture  of  service 


212  AVEKAGE  OF  LONGEST  SERVICE. 

for  the  next  forty-nine  years  would  be  deemed  desirable, 
either  by  masters  or  servants.  Almost  all  contracts  would  be 
the  ordinary  legal  ones  of  six  years.  But  after  the  expiration 
of  one  or  two  septenniums,  there  might  be  cases  of  contracts 
looking  to  the  jubilee.  On  a  probable  computation,  the  in- 
stances would  be  rare  of  such  engagements  beginning  before 
the  middle,  or  near  the  middle  of  the  period.  In  that  case, 
if  a  master  gave  a  wife  to  his  servant,  and  the  covenant  was 
assumed  by  boring  the  ear,  the  children,  as  rrs—ca,  home- 
born,  the  sons  of  the  house,  would  be  under  subjection  to  the 
master,  at  the  very  farthest,  not  longer  than  our  ordinary  pe- 
riod of  the  minority  of  children.  For  example,  take  the  con- 
tract of  a  maid-servant  as  occurring  in  the  fourth  septennium, 
or  say  in  the  twenty-fifth  year,  an  agreement  to  serve  in  the 
family  for  twenty-three  years,  or  until  the  jubilee,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  Hebrew  idiom  for  contracts  till  that  time,  for 
ever.  During  the  first  septennium  of  this  maiden's  service,  a 
Hebrew  servant  is  engaged  for  six  years,  and  soon  forming -an 
attachment,  asks  of  his  master  the  maid-servant  for  a  wife. 
She  is  given  to  him  by  his  master,  and  they  have  children ; 
and,  at  the  expiration  of  his  six  years,  he  avails  himself  of  his 
legal  privilege,  and  enters  into  a  new  contract  with  his  master 
till  the  jubilee.  At  that  time  the  oldest  of  his  children  would 
be  about  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  the  youngest  might  be 
five  or  ten ;  they  are  all  free  by  the  operation  of  the  law  of 
jubilee.  From  twenty  to  twenty-five  years  would  ordinarily 
be  the  utmost  limit  of  any  contract  of  service,  whether  for  par- 
ents or  children. 

PENALTY   AGAINST   CRUELTY   TO   SERVANTS. 

The  penalties  against  the  master  for  cruel  or  oppressive 
treatment  of  his  servants  were  the  same,  whether  the  servants 
were  Hebrew  or  of  heathen  extraction.  Whatever  injury 
was  committed  against  any  servant,  was  to  be  avenged ;  for 
loss  of  an  eye  or  a  tooth  the  servant  should  have  his  freedom, 


PENALTIES   AGAINST   CRUELTY  213 

whatever  might  have  been  his  contract  with  his  master,  what- 
ever sum  his  master  might  have  paid  him  beforehand,  no  mat- 
ter how  many  years  of  unfulfilled  service  might  remain,  Exo- 
dus, xxi.  26,  27.  In  connection  with  a  similar  section  it  is 
added,  "  Ye  shal^  have  one  manner  of  law,  as  well  for  the 
stranger  as  for  one  of  your  own  country,  for  I  am  the  Lord 
your  God,"  Leviticus,  xxiv.  22.  The  application  of  this  princi- 
ple is  beautifully  and  pointedly  illustrated  in  Job;  xxxi.  13- 
15  ;  and  the  reason  given  is  the  same,  namely,  that  the  same 
God  and  Creator  is  the  God  both  of  master  and  servant :  "  If 
I  did  despise  the  cause  of  my  man-servant  or  of  my  maid-serv- 
ant, when  they  contended  with  me,  what  shall  I  do  when  God 
riseth  up  ?  and  when  he  visiteth,  what  shall  I  answer  him  ? 
Did  not  he  that  made  me  in  the  womb  make  him  ?  and  did 
not  one  fashion  us  in  the  womb  ?"  If  a  servant  were  killed 
by  his  master,  the  punishment  was  death ;  if  the  servant  died 
after  some  days,  Exodus,  xxi.  20,  21,  in  consequence  of  blows 
inflicted  by  the  master,  then,  in  mitigation  of  the  punishment, 
the  presumption  was  admitted  in  law  that  the  killing  was  not 
intentional ;  because,  the  master  having  paid  the  servant  be- 
forehand for  his  services  up  to  a  certain  time,  "  he  was  his 
money,"  and  he  could  not  be  supposed  to  have  intended  to 
kill  him,  unless  he  did  kill  him  outright ;  and  then  the  penalty 
was  death.* 

*  In  regard  to  the  possession,  ac-  of  servant  to  Laban,  shows  the  nature 

quisition,  and  merchandise  of  property,  of  such  service.     It  was  the  service 

and  the  increase  of  personal  riches,  by  of  freemen  by  contract,  for  wages, 

servants,  such  being  their  privileges  "Mit  welchem  Rechte  konnen  diese 

as  freemen,  see  SAALSCHUTZ  on  the  Alle    Leibeigene  genannt  werden?" 

Laws  of  Moses,  page  719.    Saalschutz  See  note  on  page  714.     "With  what 

again  refers  to  a  mistaken  conclusion  propriety  can  any  of  these  be  called 

by  Michaelis,  and  remarks,  in  illustra-  slaves?"     Compare,  on  the  meaning 

tion  of  the  subject,  that  Jacob's  pos-  of  the  jubilee  contract  (forever),  STIL- 

session    of   flocks    and    herds,   with  LINGFLEET,   Originos  Sacras,  Vol.  L, 

servants  to  take  care  of  them  for  him,  p.  263. 
while  he  himself  stood  in  the  relation 


CHAPTER    XX. 

PHRASEOLOGY  FOE  CONTRACTS  WITH  SERVANTS. — SELLING  OR  HIRING  OdT,  THE  SAME 
TRANSACTION. — VARIOUS  USAGES  OP  THE  VERB  TO  SELL. — BUYING  OR  SELLING  AS 
MERCHANDISE  FORBIDDEN  ON  PAIN  OF  DEATH. — DEMONSTRATION  OF  THE  GUILT  OP 
SLAVERY  FROM  THIS  PROHIBITION. — SLAVERY,  SLAVEHOLDING,  AND  THE  SLAVE- 
TRAFFIC,  ALIKE  THE  SUBJECT  OP  DIVINE  KEPROBATION. 

WK  have  illustrated  the  position  of  the  buyer,  and  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  used  for  the  purchase  of  servants.  Let  us  now 
examine  the  usage  of  the  word  which  is  applied  to  designate 
this  transaction  on  the  part  of  the  seller.  We  take  the  first 
example  from  the  law  of  contracts  with  servants,  Exodus,  xxi. 
7,  8,  if  a  man  sell  his  daughter  to  be  a  maid-servant.  Here  the 
subject  of  the  sale,  so  called,  is  a  Hebrew  daughter.  Her  sale 
as  a  servant  could  not  possibly  be  any  thing  more  than  an  en- 
gagement for  six  years'  service,  at  the  end  of  which  she  was 
again  free.  The  person  who  purchased  her  had  no  property 
in  her,  for  she  was  as  free  as  he  was,  except  in  the  engage- 
ment of  service  for  a  limited  time.  But  in  the  case  before  us 
she  is  sold  for  a  wife,  and  is  purchased  as  such  ;  and  the  law 
defines  and  secures  her  rights  with  her  master,  who  has  be- 
trothed her  to  himself.  He  buys  her  for  his  wife  and  must 
treat  her  as  such,  and  can  not  transfer  her  to  another.  If  he 
put  her  away,  she  is  free  without  money.  She  is  described  as 
being  sold  at  one  and  the  same  time,  to  be  a  maid-servant  and 
a  wife.  She  is  at  once  the  n»N  and  the  n»N  of  the  husband. 
Her  master  may  be  the  husband  himself,  or  he  may  marry 
her  to  his  son  ;  but  the  section  shows  that  her  father  has  en- 
gaged her  in  the  service  of  the  master  on  condition  of  her 
marriage  either  to  one  or  the  other ;  and  if  this  engagement 
is  not  fulfilled,  she  returns  to  her  father  free  without  money. 


USAGE    OF    TIIE    WOKD    TO    SELL.  215 

1.  The  word  here  used  for  this  transaction  is  the  verb  itfc, 

-  T7 

to  sell.  It  is  used  of  contracts  with  free  persons,  both  as 
servants  and  wives.  The  first  instance  is  in  Genesis,  xxxi.  15, 
where  Rachel  and  Leah  declare  that  their  father  had  sold 
them,  *s^5*3,  merely  the  concise  description  of  his  giving  them 
in  marriage  to  Jacob,  who  had  paid  for  them  to  Laban,  seven 
years'  personal  service  for  each.  The  instances  in  Exodus, 
xxi.  7,  8,  Genesis,  xxxi.  15,  and  Deuteronomy,  xxi.  14,  are  the 
only  cases  in  which  the  word  is  employed  in  reference  to  a  wife. 
These  cases  form  a  class  by  themselves. 

2.  Then  there  is  the  class  of  passages  in  which  the  same 
word  is  applied  to  the  ordinary  legal  contract  of  a  Hebrew 
servant  with  his  master  or  employer.     Deuteronomy,  xv.  12, 
if  a  Hebrew  man  or  woman  be  sold  unto  thee,  sV  "!-«)•>— '3. 

'      '  :         ••  f 

Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  14,  hath  been  sold  unto  thee,  is»\  Leviti- 
cus, xxv.  39,  42,  47,  48,  50,  different  forms  of  the  same  word, 
->£».  To  these  cases  we  add  the  instance  of  a  similar  purchase, 
but  forced  beyond  what  the  law  admits,  that  is,  an  arbitrary 
contract,  forbidden  in  regard  to  the  Hebrew  servant.  Will  ye 
sell  your  brethren  f  or  shall  they  be  sold  unto  its  f  sistn, 
sisttVN  Both  the  sale  and  the  purchase  are  forbidden,  except 
on  the  conditions  in  Exodus,  xxi.  2—11. 

3.  The  same  word  is  used  to  designate  the  crime  of  man- 
selling^  the  idea  of  contract  for  service  being  excluded.     It  is 
the  sale  of  persons  as  of  chattels,  by  way  of  merchandise. 
The  first  instance  is  in  Genesis,  xxxvii.  27,  the  selling  of  Jo- 
seph by  his  brethren,  is^stts,  let  us  sell  him  ;  also,  xxxvii.  28, 
iinsto1;,  they  sold  him.     The  same,  Genesis,  xlv.  4,  5,  and  Psalm 
cv.  1 7.     This  crime  of  selling  a  man  is  described  by  the  same 
word,  and  forbidden  under  penalty  of  death,  Exodus,  xxi.  16, 
and  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  7. 

4.  A  fourth  class  describes  selling  as  the  penalty  for  theft, 
Exodus,  xxii.  3.     But  here  the  sale  is  not. indefinite;  it  is  in 
case  of  the  thief  not  being  able  to  make  restitution,  in  which 
case  he  must  be  sold,  that  is,  put  to  compulsory  service,  for 


216  TJSAGB    OF    THE    WOED    TO    SELL. 

such  a  period  as  would  make  up  the  sum  by  the  customary 
wages  for  labor.  In  this  class  of  passages  we  include  the  cases 
of  selling  for  debt.  Isaiah,  1.  1 :  To  which  of  your  creditors 
have  I  sold  you  ?  Compare  Matthew,  xviii.  25.  The  selling 
for  debt  is  simply  an  engagement  of  service  for  so  long  time 
as  would  be  sufficient,  by  the  ordinary  legal  wages,  to  pay 
the  legal  claim.  It  was  not  slavery,  nor  any  selling  as  of 
slaves.* 

5.  A  fifth  class  of  passages,  in  which  God  is  described  as 
selling  his  people  for  their  sins,  or  causing  them  to  be  sold  to 
the  heathen.     Deuteronomy,  xxviii.  68,  sold  unto  their  ene- 
mies for  bondsmen,  ye  shall  be  sold,  di-ns»nn.     Deuteronomy, 
xxxii:  30,  except  their  rock  had  sold  them,  tj^stt  d-iis  13  N^-CN. 
Judges,  ii.  14;  iii.  8;  iv.  2;  x.  V.     1  Samuel,  xii.  9.     Psalm 
xliv.  13.     Joel,  iii.  8.     The  sense  in  these  cases  is  that  of  de- 
livering up  into  the  power  of  another.     Of  this  meaning  is 
Judges,  iv.  9,  the  Lord  shall  sell  Sisera.    To  this  class  must 
be  added,  Isaiah,  1.  1,  and  Iii.  3,  where  the  Jews  are  described 
as  selling  themselves  for  their  transgressions ;   that  is,  they 
did,  by  their  sins,  what  God  did,  for  their  sins,  delivered 
themselves  over  into  the  power  of  their  enemies. 

6.  A  sixth  class  comprehends,  1  Kings,  xxi.  20,  25,  Ahab 
selling  himself  to  work  wickedness,  and  2  Kings,  xvii.  17,  the 
people  selling  themselves  to  do  evil ;  that  is,  giving  themselves 

*  JOSEPHUS,    ANTIQ.,   book    xvi.,  original  laws;  for  those  laws  ordain 

chap,  i.,  sec.  iL    The  great  mistake  that  the  thief  shall  restore  fourfold, 

of  imagining  the  selling  for  theft  or  and  that  if  he  have  not  so  much,  he 

debt  to  have  been  a  selling  into  slav-  shall  be  sold  indeed,  but  not  to  for- 

ery,  or  a  species  of  slavery,  would  eigners,  nor  so  that  he  be  under  per- 

have  been  prevented,  even  by  con-  petual  slavery,  for  he  must  have  been 

suiting  Josephus  alone.     This  histo-  released  after  six  years."    If  so  with 

rian  refers  to  an  instance  of  such  op-  the  criminal,  how  much  more  with 

pression  committed  by  Herod,  and  the  mere  debtor,  who  also  might  be 

remarks :   "  This  slavery  to  foreigners  taken  for  service   to  work  out  the 

was  an  offense  against  our  religious  debt,  but  must  be  released  within  the 

settlement   [or  constitution],  such  a  septennium. 
punishment    being    avoided    hi    our 


CRIME     OF     MAN-SELLING.  217 

up  unrestrainedly,  in  consideration  of  the  wages  of  sin  for  a 
season. 

1.  In  a  seventh  class  of  passages,  the  word  is  employed  to 
describe  the  bondage  of  the  Jews  in  their  captivity,  Neheraiah, 
v.  8,  tn'uV  cn^stesn.  Add  instances  in  Esther,  vii.  4,  where  the 
word  is  used  to  signify  delivering  or  betraying  into  the  power 
of  another,  first,  for  destruction,  second,  for  bondage. 

8.  In  another  class  still,  the  heathen  are  arraigned  for  the 
crime  of  selling  Hebrew  captives.  Joel,  iv.  3,  0,  7,  sold  a 
girl  for  wine,  intto;  sold  the  children  to  the  Grecians,  Bi^sto. 
Here  the  meaning  obviously  is  that  of  traffic,  as  in  merchan- 
dise, and  the  denunciation  of  God's  wrath  follows  accord- 
ingly. 

The  crime  of  selling  one  another  is  also  described  by  the 
same  word  in  Amos,  ii.  6  :  "  They  sell  the  righteous  for  silver 
(those  that  have  committed  no  crime,  they  sell),  and  the  needy 
for  a  pair  of  shoes."  Compare  Amos,  viii.  6,  where  the  op- 
pression of  buying  the  poor  with  silver  is  denounced  along 
with  the  crime  of  perjury  and  false  balances  in  traffic.  The 
getting,  or  in  Hebrew  phraseology,  the  buying,  of  servants,  as 
provided  by  law,  was  a  just  transaction,  voluntary  on  both 
sides ;  but  in  the  cases  before  us,  the  thing  forbidden  is  the 
buying  and  selling  of  persons  against  their  own  consent,  who 
are  compelled  by  their  poverty  to  be  thus  passed  as  merchan- 
dise ;  and  this  is  denounced  as  crime.  So  in  Zechariah,  xi.  5  : 
They  that  sell  them  say,  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  for  I  am  rich  / 
adding  to  this  monstrous  crime  the  iniquity  and  hypocrisy  of 
invoking  and  asserting  God's  blessing  upon  it. 

MAKING    MERCHANDISE    OF    MEN    OR    WOMEN    UTTERLY 
FORBIDDEN. 

From  all  these  cases  it  is  clear,  that  in  law  the  word  ntto, 
to  sell,  when  applied  to  persons,  signified  a  voluntary  contract, 
such  as  ours  of  hiring  workmen,  or  the  contract  between  a 
master  and  his  apprentices ;  and  that  in  any  other  cases,  ex- 

10 


218  CRIME     OF    MAN-SELLING. 

cept  as  making  restitution  for  theft,  or  to  work  out  a  just 
debt,  the  buying  and  selling  of  persons  was  a  criminal  trans- 
action. The  buying  as  well  as  the  selling,  in  such  a  transac- 
tion, is  denounced  as  criminal.  It  was  making  merchandise 
of  men,  a  thing  expressly  forbidden  in  the  divine  law,  on  pen- 
alty of  death.  Accordingly,  even  in  anticipation  of  the  law, 
its  principles  were  already  acted  on.  There  is  not  one  particle 
of  indication  that  Abraham,  Isaac  or  Jacob  ever  sold  one  of 
their  servants,  nor  any  supposition  of  the  power  or  right  to  do 
so.  Nor  ever,  from  the  patriarchs  down,  is  there  any  instance 
of  any  man  or  master  selling  a  servant.  The  history  of  the 
world  fails  to  disclose  one  single  case  of  such  merchandise.  On 
the  contrary,  it  proves  that  it  was  forbidden,  and  was  regard- 
ed as  sinful ;  and  that  either  the  holding,  or  selling,  or  both, 
of  a  servant  for  gain,  and  against  his  will,  or  without  his  vol- 
untary contract,  was  an  oppression  threatened  with  the  wrath 
of  God. 

And  here  belongs  the  consideration  of  Deuteronomy,  xxi. 
14,  the  case  of  the  captive  woman  taken  from  the  heathen  for 
a  wife,  but  afterwards  rejected.  Two  things  are  forbidden  in 
the  treatment  of  her;  1.  Thou  shalt  not  sell  her  at  all  for 
money;  t)o:=s  ns~;:£r;— s&  lites.  Compare  Exodus,  xxi.  8. 

2.  Thou  shalt  not  make  merchandise  of  her.  Thou  shalt 
not  bind  her  over  to  another,  thou  shalt  not  transfer  her  to 
the  power  of  another.  She  shall  not  so  be  subject  unto  thee, 
that  thou  canst  deal  with  her  as  merchandise  or  property. 
The  word  in  this  second  prohibition  is  Terri?,  from  "IEJ,  to 
bind.  Our  English  translation  seems  to  make  it  exegetical 
of  the  preceding  prohibition ;  but  it  is  not  a  synonyme  with 
iste,  neither  was  intended  as  paraphrastic  of  that.  It  is  the 
same  word  employed  in  Psalm  cxxix.  7,  of  the  mower  binding 
sheaves  to  be  carried  away  for  use  or  traffic,  sa  "na?nrr- «V,  thou 
shalt  not  play  the  master  or  oppressor  over  her. 

A  comparison  of  this  with  Exodus,  xxi.  8,  where  the  English 
translation  speaks  of  setting  a  Hebrew  woman  to  a  strange  na- 


BUYING    AS    PROPERTY    FORBIDDEN.  219 

• 

tion,  which  is  forbidden,  will  show  that  in  that  passage  the 
translation  does  not  convey  the  proper  meaning ;  for  it  was 
never  permitted  on  any  ground,  or  for  any  reason  whatever, 
to  bind  a  Hebrew  woman  to  a  heathen,  or  to  deliver  over  to 
a  foreign  nation  any  Hebrew  man  or  woman  as  servant  or 
wife.  In  the  case  before  us,  Deuteronomy,  xxi.  14,  this  is  for- 
bidden in  regard  to  the  captive  taken  from  the  heathen  in 
war ;  how  much  more  in  regard  to  any  Hebrew !  The  ex- 
pression in  Exodus,  xxi.  8,  »"5t^  Vax^-xV  ^ss  e?*»,  to  a  strange 
nation  he  shall  have  no  power  to  sell  her,  should  be  rendered, 
to  sell  her  to  a  strange  tribe,  or  to  a  strange  family  ;  and  the 
meaning  evidently  is,  that  she  shall  not  be  transferred  from 
her  master  to  any  other  family,  but  is  wholly  free.  For  the 
usage  of  ^ss,  compare  Leviticus,  xxi.  1, 4,  Ecclesiastes,  vi.  2.  It 
might  mean,  to  a  family  of  strangers,  sojourning  in  the  land, 
and  joined  to  the  congregation  by  circumcision.  The  hiring, 
selling,  apprenticing,  or  disposing  of  her  in  any  way  at  all  for 
money,  is  strictly  forbidden.  She  is  perfectly  free. 

RESULT    OF   THE   EXAMINATION. 

The  result  of  the  examination  of  the  phrase  to  sell,  in  the 
word  nstt,  maJcar,  and  in  the  passages  in  which  it  is  employed 
with  reference  to  servants  or  captives,  is  perfectly  conclusive 
against  the  existence  of  slavery,  and  triumphant  in  demonstra- 
tion of  its  guilt,  as  reprobated  and  forbidden  of  Jehovah.  The 
buying  being  proved  to  have  been  a  bargain  free  and  volun- 
tary with  the  servant  himself,  and  not  the  purchase,  as  of  prop- 
erty, from  any  third  party,  and  the  selling  being  absolutely 
forbidden,  in  the  sense  of  merchandise,  as  property,  the  mak- 
ing merchandise  of  a  man  being  forbidden  on  pain  of  death  ; — 
between  these  two  lines  of  argument  the  demonstration  of 

o 

the  guilt  and  crime  of  slavery  is  perfect. 

Now  it  is  interesting  to  bring  together  the  two  prohibitions, 
in  each  of  which  precisely  the  same  terms  are  made  use  of, 
but  the  one  relating  to  the  treatment  of  captive  women, 


220  TRAFFIC    IN    MEN    FORBIDDEN. 

• 

strangers,  the  other  to  the  treatment  of  Israelites,  and  in 
each  case  the  treatment  of  man  or  woman  as  property  forbid- 
den. In  the  first  case,  Thou  shalt  not  sell  her  at  all  for 
money:  thou  shalt  not  make  merchandise  of  her.  In  the 
second  case,  If  a  man  be  found  stealing  any  of  his  brethren  of 
the  children  of  Israel,  and  maketh  merchandise  of  him,  or  sell- 
eth  him,  then  that  thief  shall  die  ;  and  thou  shalt  put  evil  away 
from  among  you,  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  7.  The  repetition  of  the 
prohibition  by  separate  phrases,  as  if  one  were  not  explicit 
enough,  though  ever  so  plain,  in  reprobation  of  the  crime  of 
treating  human  beings  as  property,  is  exceedingly  emphatic : 
Thou  shalt  not  sett  her  at  all  /  thou  shalt  not  make  merchan- 
dise of  her.  If  thou  make  merchandise  of  him,  or  if  thou  sell 
him,  thou  shalt  die.  It  would  be  difficult  to  reprobate  more 
explicitly  the  infamous  supposition  that  man  can  hold  property 
in  man,  or  to  guard  more  carefully  against  the  infamous  crime 
of  treating  man  as  property ;  converting  human  beings  into 
merchandise,  buying,  holding,  transferring,  selling  them  as 
chattels. 

In  forbidding  this  traffic  in  human  beings  on  pain  of  death, 
having  already  sealed  up  the  original  crime  of  man-stealing, 
in  which  the  traffic  began,  under  the  same  condemnation  and 
penalty,  the  Divine  Being  brands  slavery,  slaveholding,  and 
the  slave  traffic,  so  incontrovertibly,  so  palpably,  as  the  sub- 
ject of  divine  hatred  and  wrath,  and  forbids  it,  so  unquestion- 
ably, for  all  mankind,  that  the  reader  of  these  statutes  stands 
amazed  at  the  hardihood  and  impiety  of  any  nation  or  people, 
professing  any  regard  to  the  authority  of  God,  any  belief  in 
divine  revelation,  that  can  permit  the  crime  within  its  borders, 
much  more  can  sanction,  legalize,  protect  it ;  can  raise  it  to 
the  dignity  of  a  domestic  institution,  perpetuate  it  to  other 
generations  by  laws  for  its  entailment,  set  apart  a  race  for  its 
enormities  of  oppression  and  of  cruelty  to  be  exercised  upon, 
and  make  the  breeding  of  that  race,  and  the  domestic  trade 
in  human  stock,  thus  propagated,  the  object  of  State  and  Na- 


IMPIETY    OF    THE    TRAFFIC    IN    AFRICANS.  221 

tional  protection,  as  the  most  sacred  and  valuable  of  all  the 
rights  of  property  under  heaven. 

It  is  a  fit  climax  of  such  infinite  rascality  and  impiety  to 
select,  as  the  qualifying  direction  of  this  crime,  as  the  mark 
denoting  the  consecrated  subjects  of  such  ineffable  atrocity, 
a  seal  of  God's  own  providence,  the  tincture  of  the  skin,  the 
hue  it  has  pleased  him  to  impart  in  the  organization  of  a  por- 
tion of  his  creatures.  Had  the  race  of  men-stealers  in  the 
United  States,  and  of  judicial  tyrants  and  impostors,  thought 
good  to  set  forth  and  establish  as  the  guidance  of  their  detest- 
able villainy,  the  reason  of  their  slave-law,  and  the  security 
and  ground  of  its  execution,  some  infernal  or  atrocious  discov- 
ered quality  of  character,  some  combination  of  moral  and  phys- 
ical depravity,  so  that  it  might  seem  as  if  the  very  will  of  God, 
in  his  providential  retributive  justice,  were  being  carried  out 
in  the  reduction  of  such  a  race  to  slavery,  the  crime  had  not 
reached  such  a  height  of  impudent  malignity,  such  a  depth  of 
meanness,  such  a  consummation  of  intense,  causeless,  irreligious 
cruelty.  But  to  take  the  divine  providence,  in 'the  hue  of  the 
African  race  of  human  beings,  as  a  guide  and  sanction  for  the 
violation  of  the  divine  law,  in  the  commission  against  that  race 
of  the  one  crime  which  God  has  branded,  because  of  its  guilt, 
in  co-equality  with  murder ;  and  to  make  that  providential 
color  of  the  skin,  the  reason  of  an  announcement  from  the 
highest  tribunal  of  national  justice,  that  BLACK  MEN  HAVE  NO 

RIGHTS    THAT    WHITE    MEN  ARE    BOUND   TO    RESPECT this,  CCr- 

tainly,  is  to  have  reached  at  once  an  impious  sublimity  and  de- 
formity of  wickedness,  such  as  no  other  nation  under  heaven 
ever  yet  attained.* 

*  This  opinion  is  the  concentrated  Also,  the  volume  of  Rev.  Vf.  GOODELL, 

essence  of  the  current  of  slave  legisla-  equally  demonstrative,  with  a  more 

tion,  down  to  the  present  time.     Com-  particular  and  powerful  moral  applica- 

parc,  for  proof,  the  volume  of  Judge  tion.  The  history  of  the  world  contains 

STROUD,  Laws  relating  to  Slavery,  the  nothing,  as  a  system  of  outrage,  wrong 

twelve  propositions  of  the  nature  of  and  cruelty,  so  dreadful  as  the  reality 

the  system,  with  cases  and  decisions,  in  these  volumes,  viewed  under  the 

a  demonstration  not  to  bo  questioned,  gospel. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

THE  LAW  AQAINST  MAN-STEALING. — EXPLICIT  DEFINITION  OP  THE  CRIME.— STEALING  A 
MAN,  HOLDING  HIM  AS  A  SLAVE,  OK  SELLING  HIM,  ALL  THE  SAME  CRIME. — SLAVE- 
HOLDERS, SLAVE-BUYERS,  SLAVE-SELLERS,  ARE  CONSEQUENTLY  ALL  MAN-STEALERS. — 
WHAT  THE  DEATH  PENALTY  PROVES.— PROPERTY  IN  MAN  IMPOSSIBLE.— CONTRAP.Y 
TO  GOD'S  LAW. — ATTEMPTED  PERVERSION  OF  THE  LAW.— PAUL'S  QUOTATION  OF  IT 
AGAINST  MEN-STEALEHS. 

THE    LAW    AGAINST    MAN-STEALING. WHAT    IT    PROVES. 

IMMEDIATELY  after  the  laws  determining  the  nature  and 
time  of  contracts  with  servants,  the  legislator  passes  to  the 
crime  of  murder  and  the  death  penalty  against  it.  Then  fol- 
lows the  great  fundamental  statute,  which  demonstrates  the 
criminality  of  slavery  in  the  sight  of  God :  HE  THAT  STEALETH 

A  MAN  AND  SELLETH  HIM,  OR  IF  HE  BE  FOUND  IN  HIS  HAND,  HE 
SHALL  SURELT  BE  PUT  TO  DEATH,  Exodus,  Xxi.  16.  As  the 

stealing  of  men  is  the  foundation  of  slavery  in  most  cases,  and 
especially  of  modern  slavery,  this  statute  condemns  it  as  sin- 
ful, intrinsically,  absolutely.  The  stealing,  the  selling,  the  hold- 
ing, of  a  man  in  slavery,  is  death ;  either  form  of  the  crime 
shall  be  so  punished.  Whether  the  kidnapper  keep  or  sell  his 
victim,  the  crime  is  death. 

But  the  purchaser,  with  knowledge  of  the  theft,  is  equally 
guilty,  and  would  be  treated  as  conspirator  and  principal  in 
the  same  crime.  On  the  principles  of  common  law,  as  well  as 
common  justice,  this  is  inevitable.  Common  law  and  justice, 
as  well  as  common  sense  and  piety,  pronounce  the  slaves  and 
their  descendants  in  our  own  country  a  stolen  race,  their  pro- 
genitors having  been  stolen  at  the  outset,  and  there  being  no 
possibility,  by  transmission,  of  changing  the  original  theft  into 
a  just  possession,  the  original  man-stealing  into  a  just  claim  of 


HORSE-THIEVES    AND    MAN-THIEVES.  223 

property  in  man.  On  $\e  same  principles  of  simple  incontro- 
vertible justice,  every  receiver  and  buyer  of  the  stolen  race, 
or  of  any  individual  slave,  with  the  claim  of  property  in  him, 
is  the  man-stealer,  an  accomplice  in  the  crime  ;  for  the  maxim 
at  common  law  holds,  above  all,  in  such  a  case,  that  the  re- 
ceiver is  as  bad  as  the  thief.  He  that  buys  and  holds  a  man, 
knowing  liim  to  have  been  stolen,  steals  him  ;  and  his  having 
been  bought  and  sold  forty  times,  before  the  last  trafficker  in 
human  flesh  bought  him,  could  make  no  difference.  He  re- 
mains, and  must  remain,  a  stolen  man,  no  matter  through 
how  many  hands  he  passes.  All  the  hands  that  hold  him  as 
property  are  red  with  this  crime  of  stealing  him,  this  murder 
of  his  personal  freedom.  The  same  principle  on  which  the 
buyer  of  a  stolen  horse,  knowing  him  to  have  been  stolen,  is 
a  horse-thief,  makes  the  slave  buyer  and  the  slaveholder  a 
man-stealer.  The  slaveholder  in  withholding  the  slave  from 
his  freedom,  steals  him.  The  continuing  to  withhold  him  from 
his  freedom,  and  to  hold  him  as  property,  is  the  renewed 
stealing  of  him.  It  is  as  truly  the  stealing  of  him,  as  the  buy- 
ing of  a  stolen  horse  from  a  horse  thief,  while  the  owner  was 
bound,  and  gagged,  and  helpless,  would  be  the  stealing  of  the 
horse,  even  though  the  thief  was  paid  for  him. 

In  connection  with  the  other  provisions  in  the  Hebrew  sys- 
tem, this  law  against  man- stealing  rendered  slavery  absolutely 
impossible.  The  limitation  of  legal  servitude  to  six  years,  and 
the  law  of  universal  freedom  on  the  recurrence  of  the  jubilee, 
would  alone  have  prevented  it ;  but  the  law  of  death  against 
man-stealing  made  the  practice  of  slavery  as  criminal  a  system 
as  an  organized  system  of  murder  would  have  been.  The 
stealing  of  a  man  is  the  stealing  of  him  from  himself;  the 
buying  of  him  is  the  receiving  of  stolen  property  ;  the  enslav- 
ing of  his  children  is  the  stealing  of  them  both  from  them- 
selves and  from  him,  so  that  the  crime  is  incomparably  exas- 
perated in  its  descent ;  by  transmission,  the  crime  is  at  once  in- 
creased in  extent,  and  undiminished  as  to  the  original  iniquity. 


224  THE    RECEIVER    AS    BAD    AS    THE    THIEF. 

- 
ANY  TRAFFIC  IN   HUMAN  BEINGS  IMPOSSIBLE  UNDER   THIS   LATV. 

PROPERTY   IN   MAN   IMPOSSIBLE. 

This  law  must  effectually  and  for  ever  have  prevented  any 
traffic  in  human  beings.  It  denies  the  principle  of  property 
in  man.  The  stealing  of  a  man  is  the  stealing  of  him  from 
himself,  and  the  converting  of  him  into  property ;  and  that  is 
to  be  punished  with  death.  No  matter  if  the  thief  merely 
kept  him  as  a  captive  for  his  own  use,  and  did  not  intend  to 
sell  him  ;  the  being  found  in  his  hands  was  enough  ;  he  should 
surely  be  put  to  death.  He  might  say  that  he  captured  him 
in  Africa,  among  savages,  and  brought  him  to  Judea  as  one 
of  God's  missionaries,  on  benevolent  grounds  and  with  justi- 
ficatory circumstances.  The  pretense  would  avail  nothing ; 
he  should  surely  be  put  to  death  for  the  stealing  of  a  man. 
The  stealing  alone  should  be  punished  by  death  ;  and  the 
holding  would  be  sufficient  evidence  of  the  stealing;  the  hold- 
ing of  him  as  a  slave  would  be  itself  the  stealing;  the  being 
found  in  his  hands,  under  constraint,  against  his  own  will, 
would  be  enough. 

Then  comes  the  selling,  equally  to  be  punished  by  death, 
because  the  selling  is  not  only  the  converting  of  him  into  prop- 
erty, but,  it  is  the  transfer  of  that  property,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances as  to  make  the  stolen  man  a  more  hopeless  victim 
still  of  such  cruelty,  It  is  the  transfer  of  that  property  under 
the  pretense  of  a  just  claim.  It  is  putting  the  counterfeit  bill 
in  circulation,  with  a  voucher ;  it  is  giving  the  forgery  a  cur- 
rency by  endorsement.  The  selling  is  the  assumption  of  prop- 
erty in  the  stolen  person,  and  the  selling  is  punishable  by 
death.  The  stealing  alone,  if  the  thief  did  not  sell,  might  not 
be  the  assertion  of  property,  or  of  the  principle  of  property  in 
man ;  but  the  selling  of  him  would  be ;  and  either  stealing 
and  holding,  or  stealing  and  selling,  or  stealing,  holding,  or 
selling,  the  crime  is  put  on  a  level  with  murder. 


NO    ESCAPING    FROM    GOD'S    LOGIC.  225 

THE   POWER   OP    THIS    DIVINE    LOGIC. — DAMNING    NATURE     OF 
THE   TRAFFIC   IN   HUMAN   BEINGS. 

There  is  no  escaping  from  this  logic.  It  holds  the  slave- 
holder with  a  grip  more  inexorable  than  his  own  remorseless 
and  infernal  claim  of  property  in  man.  He  commits  the  orig- 
inal iniquity  of  man-stealing  comfortably  and  innocently,  as  he 
thinks,  without  either  the  guilt,  or  the  trouble,  or  the  danger 
of  the  original  piracy ;  but  God  will  hold  him  to  an  inexorable 
account  under  his  own  explicit  law,  and  on  the  principles  of 
common  justice,  as  to  fraud  and  cruelty  between  man  and  man. 
God  will  not  hold  him  guiltless,  though  man  may ;  God  will 
never  hold  his  own  truth  in  unrighteousness,  though  the 
church  of  God  on  earth  may  do  it,  and  may  sacrifice  both 
truth  and  righteousness  in  the  compromise  with  crime ;  God's 
judgment  remains,  and  is  unalterable,  and  by  that,  and  not 
by  human  compromises,  or  adjustment  of  expediencies,  must 
men  be  tried,  when  they  violate  God's  law,  and  proclaim 
such  violations  innocent,  by  framing  a  human  law  for  its  pro- 
tection. 

The  stealing  of  human  beings  as  property,  and  the  convert- 
ing of  them  into  property,  is  worse,  by  the  divine  law,  than 
the  stealing  of  property ;  as  much  worse  as  murder  is  than 
stealing.  Such  is  the  distinction  which  God  makes  between 
this  and  a  common  theft,  between  the  stealing  of  a  man  and 
the  stealing  of  property.  The  theft  of  property  was  punished 
by  fine ;  but  the  stealing  of  a  man,  by  death  :  "  If  a  man  shall 
steal  an  ox,  or  a  sheep,  and  kill  it  or  sell  it,  he  shall  restore  five 
oxen  for  an  ox,  and  four  sheep  for  a  sheep,"  Exodus,  xxii.  1. 
"If  the  theft  be  certainly  found  in  his  hand  alive,  whether  it 
be  ox,  or  ass,  or  sheep,  he  shall  restore  double,"  Exodus,  xxii.  4. 
Compare  Exodus,  xxii.  9.  If  slavery  had  had  any  existence 
among  the  Hebrews,  any  toleration,  if  man  had  been  consid- 
ered as  property,  then  the  penalty  for  such  theft  could  not 
have  been  death,  but  the  restoration  of  five  slaves  for  a  slave, 

10* 


220  NO    TRAFFIC    IN    MEN    PERMITTED. 

or  the  payment  of  five  times  as  much  as  the  stolen  man  would 
bring  in  the  market.  And  the  near  and  striking  contrast  be- 
tween these  crimes  and  the  respective  penalties  attached  to 
them,  must  have  made  men  feel  that  the  assertion  of  property 
in  man  was  itself  a  crime. 

Accordingly,  there  is  no  indication  of  any  traffic  in  human 
beings  except  where  it  is  indicated  as  a  crime,  with  the  wrath 
of  God  pointed  against  it.  There  was  such  traffic  among  other 
nations,  but  no  approach  to  it  in  Judea.  The  trade  in  human 
beings  is  set  down  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel  as  among  th'e  com- 
mercial transactions  in  the  market  place  of  Tyre ;  but  no  He- 
brew had  any  thing  to  do  with  it,  Ezekiel,  xxvii.  13.  It  is  set 
down  by  Joel  as  a  damning  trade  of  Tyre  and  Zidon,  of  the 
heathen,  and  the  Grecians,  Joel,  iii.  2-8,  and  every  approxima- 
tion to  it,  on  the  part  of  Israel,  is  marked  for  divine  vengeance. 
But  no  such  traffic  was  allowed,  or  existed,  under  the  law  of 
God  ;  no  such  thing  as  slavery  was  either  recognized  or  tol- 
erated. There  is  no  instance  of  the  purchase  even  of  servants 
from  a  third  person,  as  if  they  were  articles  of  possession  that 
could  be  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  from  master  to  master, 
without  their  own  agreement.  There  is  no  instance  of  the  sale 
of  any  servant  to  a  third  person.  There  is  no  indication  that 
masters  ever  had  any  power  to  sell  their  servants  to  others,  or 
to  put  them  away  from  their  own  families,  except  in  perfect 
freedom.  Our  English  translators,  and  the  lexicographers, 
have  indeed,  in  most  cases,  assumed  slavery  and  the  slave 
trade  as  existing  in  Judea ;  but  the  Mosaic  laws  and  the 
Jewish  history  demonstrate  the  contrary.  A  single  assump- 
tion, by  Gesenius,  that  the  word  for  souls  in  Genesis,  xii.  5, 
«?:,  souls  that  Abraham  and  Lot  had  gotten  in  Jlaran,  means 
slaves,  shall  be  followed,  without  examination,  by  other  lexi- 
cographers, and  shall  set  the  tide  of  opinion  to  run  on  without 
questioning. 


THE     LAW    MADE    FOR    MAN-STEALERS.  227 


HUMAN  BEINGS  CAN  NOT  BE  TREATED  AS  PROPERTY. 

But  the  statute  under  consideration  shines  like  a  sun  upon 
such  an  investigation,  and  throws  its  light  backwards  as  wel* 
as  forwards  in  history  and  law,  as  a  light  of  supreme  defining 
and  controlling  principle.  Human  beings  can  not  be  treated 
as  property.  There  is  no  restriction  :  the  universality  of  the 
law  is  unquestionable  ;  the  subject  of  it  being  a  man,  not  a 
Hebrew  man  exclusive  of  a  stranger,  but  a  man,  whosoever 
he  might  be.  The  universality  of  this  law  is  as  evident  as  that 
law  in  verse  12  :  He  that  smiteth  a  man  so  that  he  die,  shall 
surely  be  put  to  death.  There  is  no  more  ground  for  restrict- 
ing the  application  of  the  statute  against  stealing  a  man  to  the 
Hebrew  stolen,  than  that  against  killing  a  man.  So  with  the 
statute  against  killing  a  servant  ;  there  is  no  restriction.  A 
comparison  of  this  with  Leviticus,  xxiv.  17,  21,  22,  makes  it 
still  clearer.  In  this  place  the  statute  is  also  concerning  the 
death-penalty,  and  the  form  is  as  follows  :  He  that  killeth 
any  man  shall  surely  be  put  to  death  ;  and  it  is  added,  Ye 
shall  have  one  manner  of  law,  as  well  for  the  stranger  as  for 
one  of  your  own  country  ;  for  I  am  the  Lord  your  God.  So 
with  the  laws  concerning  the  treatment  of  one's  neighbor;  if 
any  man  ask,  But  who  is  my  neighbor  ?  willing  to  restrict 
their  application  to  a  countryman,  the  commentary  of  our 
Lord,  in  Luke,  x.  30,  settles  the  matter.  But  if  so  in  a  smaller 
.injury  committed,  or  benefit  required,  much  more  in  the 
greater.  Along  with  this  statute  is  placed  the  law,  Thou 
shalt  not  vex  a  stranger,  nor  oppress  him,  Exodus,  xxii.  21, 
and  again  xxiii.  9.  But  finally  the  matter  is  settled  by  Paul, 
in  1  Timothy,  i.  10  :  "  The  law  is  made  for  man-slayers,  men- 
stealers,"  and  others  named,  without  restriction  as  to  lineage 
or  land.  The  reference  is  unquestionable  ;  the  application 
equally  so. 

He  that  stealeth  A  MAN.  If  it  had  been  (as  some  modern 
supporters  of  the  system  of  slavery  affirm)  a  statute  for  the 


228  PERVERSION    OF     GOD'S    WORD. 

* 

support,  sanction,  and  better  protection  of  slavery  and  slave 
property,  a  statute  against  stealing  slaves  or  servants,  the  dis- 
tinguishing word  would  have  been  used  (had  there  been  a  word 
in  the  Hebrew  tongue  signifying  slave) ;  and  for  want  of  such 
a  word,  the  nearest  approximation  to  it  would  have  been 
taken.  The  statute  must  have  read,  He  that  stealeth  a  serv- 
ant,iw,  not  he  that  stealeth  »•>«,  a  man.  So  gross  a  blunder 
could  never  have  been  committed  by  the  lawgiver  as  the  in- 
troduction of  the  genus  instead  of  the  species,  in  a  case  involv- 
ing the  penalty  of  death  ;  so  gross  a  blunder  as  that  by  which 
the  slaveholder  instead  of  the  slave-stealer  might  have  been 
obnoxious  to  the  penalty.  If  it  had  been  a  law  against  the 
stealing  of  another  man's  slaves,  then  the  slaveholder  might 
have  stolen  a  man  and  made  him  a  slave,  with  perfect  impu- 
nity ;  and  only  the  thief  who  should  dare  to  steal  from  him 
the  slave  so  made  would  be  subject  to  the  penalty.  The  law 
would  have  been  not  against  the  stealing  of  a  man,  as  man, 
and  making  him  property,  but  against  the  stealing  of  him  as 
property,  after  he  is  so  made.  The  assumption  of  those  who 
would  maintain  that  Moses  promulgated  this  law  for  the  pro- 
tection of  slavery,  is  just  this ;  that  man,  as  man,  is  not 
sacred  against  kidnapping ;  but  man  as  kidnapped  and  made 
property,  man  as  property,  is  so  sacred  and  inviolable  a  pos- 
session, that  the  theft  of  him  as  a  slave  must  be  punished  with 
death. 

DETESTABLENESS    OF   THE   ATTEMPT  TO   FALSIFY  THIS   STATUTE. 

Did  the  history  of  crime,  or  of  impudent  wickedness  in  jus- 
tifying it,  ever  record  an  endeavor  so  brazen  to  falsify  fact,  to 
distort  the  laws  of  the  Almighty,  to  pervert  their  meaning,  to 
change  good  into  evil,  and  put  darkness  for  light  ?  The  trick 
is  too  barefaced  and  palpable  even  to  be  dignified  with  the 
name  of  sophistry ;  it  is  a  downright  and  deliberate  falsifica 
tion  of  God's  word,  in  order  to  shield  from  his  reprobation 
that  which,  along  with  murder,  and  equally  as  that,  constitutes 


MAN    CAN    NOT    BE    A    SLAVE.  229 

the  greatest  of  human  villainies.  These  deliberate  falsifiers  of 
God's  truth  endeavor  to  shield  from  condemnation  the  crime 
of  stealing  a  freeman,  and  making  him  a  slave,  because  the  con- 
demnation of  that  crime,  as  a  crime  worthy  of  death,  includes 
inevitably,  and  necessitates,  the  equal  condemnation  of  slavery, 
as  the  result  and  essence  of  that  crime.  If  it  be  a  crime  to 
steal  a  man,  it  is  an  equal  crime  to  hold  him  when  stolen ;  for 
the  holding  of  him  is  the  renewal  of  the  stealing  every  day. 
If  he  is  passed  over  to  a  second  thief  for  a  consideration,  then 
that  thief,  holding  the  stolen  man,  does  himself  steal  him,  does 
himself  renew  the  theft  of  a  man.  The  fact  that  he  paid  for 
him  does  not  make  it  any  less  the  stealing  of  him. 

These  falsifiers  of  God's  word  endeavor  to  shield  this  crime 
of  stealing  A  MAN  from  condemnation,  and  to  throw  the  whole 
reprobation  against  the  imaginary  crime  of  stealing  a  slave. 
There  is  no  such  crime ;  for  the  stealing  of  a  slave  would  be 
criminal,  merely  because  it  is  the  stealing  of  a  man  from  him- 
self, and  not  a  slave  from  his  master  ;  merely  because  God  has 
denounced  the  stealing  of  a  man  as  being  a  crime  as  great  as 
that  of  murder.  Therefore,  the  stealing  of  a  slave  would  be 
criminal,  because  it  is  the  stealing  of  a  man,  but  not  because 
the  slave  can  be  any  man's  property,  not  because  he  belongs, 
or  can  belong,  to  his  master,  which  God  forbids,  but  to  him- 
self only ;  and  his  master,  in  claiming  and  holding  him  as 
property,  steals  him ;  in  making  a  slave  of  him,  steals  him. 

But  these  apologists  for  slavery  maintain  that  it  is  a  greater 
crime  to  steal  a  stolen  man  than  it  is  to  steal  a  freeman.  They 
hold  that  it  is  no  crime  at  all  to  steal  that  which  is  not  prop- 
erty, namely,  a  freeman ;  but  the  moment  the  man  is  stolen, 
and  converted  into  property,  then  he  becomes  sacred,  as  an- 
other's possession,  and  the  stealing  of  him  becomes  robbery, 
because  it  is  the  stealing  of  a  slave !  The  stealing  of  a 
freeman  from  himself  and  from  God  is  to  be  protected,  be- 
cause it  is  a  mode  of  creating  the  most  valuable  of  all  prop- 
erty ;  but  the  stealing  of  the  stolen  man,  when  thus  once  ere- 


230  EVERT    SLAVE    IS    A    MAN. 

ated  a  slave,  once  transformed  into  property  by  the  original 
stealing  of  a  freeman,  is  the  worst  kind  of  theft,  because  it  is 
the  stealing  of  a  stolen  man  from  his  owner,  after  he  has  been 
laboriously,  and  at  great  cost  of  cruelty  and  wickedness,  trans- 
figured into  a  slave !  A  slave,  by  God's  law,  according  to 
these  "  doctrines  of  devils,"  is  sacred  from  theft,  but  a  free- 
man is  not !  A  MAN  may  be  stolen  with  impunity,  but  the 
stealing  of  a  slave  is  to  be  punished  with  death !  A  slave  is  to 
be  protected  as  property,  but  not  as  a  MAN.  A  man,  as  a  man, 
and  a  freeman,  can  not  be  shielded  from  being  stolen,  and  there 
is  no  law  against  the  man-stealer ;  but  as  a  slave,  God  inter- 
poses and  makes  it  death  to  steal  him,  not,  however,  on  his 
own  account,  or  for  his  own  protection  as  a  MAX,  but  for  the 
protection  of  his  master's  sacred  right  of  property  in  him  as  a 
stolen  man ! 

With  what  sublimated  essence  of  cruelty  and  compound 
wickedness  these  moral  chemists  charge  the  word  of  God ! 
Passing  it  through  the  manipulations  of  such  complicated 
power  of  lying,  the  retorts  and  crucibles  of  their  own  diabol- 
ism, it  comes  forth  glaring  like  a  demon,  filled,  in  this  thing, 
with  their  own  murder,  debate,  deceit,  malignity.  The  glory 
of  the  incorruptible  God  is  changed  into  the  image  of  a  devil, 
when  that  unrighteousness  of  men  against  which  the  wrath  of 
God  is  revealed  from  heaven,  is,  by  their  dreadful  ingenuity, 
enthroned  as  the  object  of  Heaven's  sanction  and  protection ; 
it  is  the  all-deceivableness  of  unrighteousness  in  them  that 
perish,  when  the  truth  is  thus  held  by  them  in  unrighteous- 
ness, and  the  unrighteousness  is  presented  as  the  truth. 

UNIVERSALITY    AND    PARTICULARITY    OF    THE    STATUTE. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  deny  the  universality  of  the 
first  grand  enactment  against  stealing  A  MAN,  by  an  appeal  to 
the  other  and  second  statute  in  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  7,  where 
the  application  is  directly  to  the  Hebrew  man.  "  If  a  man  be 
found  stealing  any  of  his  brethren  of  the  children  of  Israel, 


STEALING    A    HEBREW,    STEALING    A    MAN.  231 

and  maketh  merchandise  of  him,  or  'selleth  him,  then  that 
thief  shall  die,  and  thou  shalt  put  evil  from  among  you."  As 
if  Jehovah  could  have  taught  that  it  was  evil  to  steal  a  Hebrew, 
but  not  evil  to  steal  a  man !  As  if,  in  the  sight  of  God,  the 
stealing  of  a  Hebrew  was  a  crime  worthy  of  death,  while  the 
stealing  of  a  man  might  be  permitted  with  impunity !  This 
attempted  evasion  is  almost  as  detestable  as  the  other,  that 
the  only  thing  criminal  is  the  stealing  of  a  slave  from  his  mas- 
ter, while  the  stealing  of  a  man  from  himself,  being  only  the 
making  of  a  slave,  is  not  only  no  sin  and  no  evil,  but  a 
benefit  to  society,  and  an  act  of  missionary  intelligence  and 
mercy. 

This  statute,  which  was  passed  concerning  the  Hebrew  forty 
years  after  the  other  concerning  the  MAN,  and  without  any 
connection  with  or  reference  to  the  first,  as  we  have  already 
noted,  had  a  special  object,  which  confirms  and  strengthens 
the  principle.  It  can  not  possibly  be  regarded  as  a  statute  of 
limitation  or  interpretation  merely,  much  less  of  abrogation, 
as  if  the  specific  abrogated  the  general.  Rather,  if  any  such 
reference  were  supposed,  might  it  be  contended  that  it  having 
been  found  in  the  course  of  forty  years  that  the  first  and  gen- 
eral law  might  have  been  claimed  as  applying  only  to  the 
stranger  or  the  heathen,  and  not  to  the  stealing  of  a  Hebrew, 
whose  servitude,  even  if  stolen,  could  not  last  more  than  six 
years  (so  carefully  by  law  was  this  adjusted),  it  was  found 
necessary,  for  greater  security  and  definiteness,  to  add  the 
second  enactment,  specifying  also  the  Hebrew.  But  here 
again,  any  limitation  of  the  first  statute  by  the  second  is  for- 
bidden in  the  same  chapter,  by  the  application  of  verse  14 : 
"Thou  shalt  not  oppress  a  hired  servant  that  is  poor  and 
needy,  whether  he  be  of  thy  brethren,  or  of  thy  strangers  that 
are  in  thy  land  within  thy  gate."  Now  if  a  hired  servant  that 
was  not  a  Hebrew  could  not  be  oppressed,  any  more  than  a 
native,  much  more  could  not  such  a  one  be  stolen  with  im- 
punity, or  the  thief  escape  the  penalty.  He  would  not  be 


232  UNQUESTIONABLE  MEANING   OF   THE   LAW. 

permitted  to  plead  that,  because  there  was  a  law  against  steal- 
ing a  Hebrew,  therefore  the  law  against  stealing  a  man  was 
null  and  void. 

Whether  of  thy  brethren  or  of  strangers,  the  oppression  was 
alike  sinful,  alike  forbidden.  But  the  greatest  of  all  oppres- 
sion was  that  of  stealing  a  man  and  making  a  slave  of  him ; 
and  if  this  was  forbidden  on  pain  of  death  in  regard  to  a  He- 
brew, it  was  equally  criminal  and  forbidden  in  regard  to  the 
stranger ;  if  a  crime  worthy  of  death  when  committed  against 
a  servant,  then  not  less  a  crime  when  perpetrated  against  a 
freeman.  The  stealing  of  an  African  was  as  sinful  as  the  steal- 
ing of  a  Jew.  The  stealing  of  an  Egyptian  would  have  come 
under  this  penalty  of  death  for  punishment  as  certainly  as  the 
stealing  of  a  son  of  Abraham.  Ye  shall  have  one  manner  of 
law,  as  well  for  the  stranger  as  for  your  own  countryman — a 
most  humane,  merciful,  and  wise  provision  of  a  large  and  im- 
partial benevolence  and  justice,  which,  if  our  own  enlightened 
country  and  government  had  followed,  we  should  not  now 
have  been  laden  with  the  iniquity  of  an  accursed  jurisprudence, 
of  the  most  infamous  injustice  and  cruelty,  for  keeping  four 
millions  of  human  beings  in  perpetual  slavery. 

If  this  law  had  been  against  stealing  Jews,  instead  of  men, 
then  the  apostle,  in  transferring  it,  must  have  said  the  law  was 
made  for  Jew-stealers,  not  men-stealers,  for  'lovdaiovTroStaralc, 
not  dvdpaTTodioralg.  And  so,  if  the  law  had  been  against 
stealing  slaves,  not  men,  for  the  protection  and  sanction  of 
slave-property,  not  to  declare  God's  protection  of  men  as  hu- 
man beings,  against  theft,  or  for  the  security  of  slave-owners, 
and  not  for  the  sacredness  of  men  as  created  in  God's  image ; 
then  the  apostle,  in  translating  that  law  into  the  wider  dispen- 
sation, and  defining  its  application,  must  have  said,  the  law 
was  made  for  slave-stealers,  dovhoTrodiarcug,  or  dov^oTTanaig, 
not  men-stealers.  The  context  in  Exodus,  and  context  in 
Timothy,  nail  the  passages  as  beyond  all  disputation  referring 
to  the  same  law.  In  Exodus  it  lies  alongside  with  statutes 


PAUL'S   REFERENCE   TO  JT.  233 

against  man-slayers,  cursers,  and  murderers  of  father  and 
mother ;  in  1  Timothy  the  conjunction  is  the  same  :  "  Know- 
ing this,  that  the  law  is  not  made  for  a  righteous  man,  but 
for  the  lawless  and  disobedient,  for  the  ungodly  and  for  sin- 
ners, for  unholy  and  profane,  for  murderers  of  fathers  and 
murderers  of  mothers,  for  man-slayers,  for  whoremongers,  for 
them  that  defile  themselves  with  mankind,  for  MEN-STEALERS, 
fo'r  liars,  for  perjured  persons;  and  if  there  be  any  other  thing 
that  is  contrary  to  sound  doctrine,  according  to  the  glorious 
gospel  of  the  blessed  God,  which  was  committed  to  my  trust." 
This  reference  is  as  clear  as  the  noon.  No  man  can  for  one 
moment  doubt  the  precise  law  in  Exodus,  which  is  referred  to 
by  Paul,  in  writing  to  Timothy.*  Paul  could  not,  therefore,  in 
referring  to  it,  have  wholly  distorted  either  its  meaning  or  its 
application.  He  could  not  have  made  so  great  a  mistake  as 
that  of  leveling  against  the  very  foundations  of  slavery  and  the 
slave  trade,  a  law  published  originally,  and  intended  of  God 
for  the  protection  of  slave  property.  He  could  not  have  inter- 
preted, in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  man  against  slaveholders, 
a  law  intended  of  God  to  secure  the  rights  of  slaveholders 


*  JOSEPHUS,  ANTIQ.,  book  iv.,  chap.  Josephus  must  have  used  the  word 
viii.,  sec.  27.  slave  instead  of  A  MAN,  had  the  inter- 
There  is  no  question  as  to  the  in-  pretation  of  the  law  been  imagined  as 
terpretation  given  to  this  law  by  the  against  slave-stealing  instead  of  man- 
Jews  of  Paul's  time.  Indeed,  a  man  stealing.  The  late  Judge  Jay,  an 
must  be  almost  an  idiot  to  believe,  or  eminent  jurist,  philanthropist,  and 
quite  a  villain  to  maintain,  that  the  Christian,  speaks,  in  his  admirable 
law  against  stealing  a  man  recognizes  ESSAY  ON  THE  MOSAIC  LAWS  OP 
the  lawfulness  and  justice  of  slavery,  SERVITUDK,  with  just  severity  and 
and  forbids  merely  the  stealing  of  a  contempt  of  the  "intense  baseness  to 
slave.  But  to  this  extreme  will  the  which  northern  apologists  for  slavery 
defense  of  this  iniquity  carry  even  a  will  sometimes  descend,  as  strikingly 
professed  Christian,  though  against  illustrated  in  a  pro-slavery  article  of 
common  sense  as  well  as  common  the  American  Quarterly  Review,  for 
piety.  Josephus  quotes  the  law:  "Let  June,  1833,"  in  which  the  impious 
death  be  the  punishment  for  stealing  evasion  and  falsification  above  noted 
a  man;  but  he  that  hath  purloined  are  resorted  to. 
gold  or  silver,  let  him  pay  double." 


234 

against  men.  To  this  extent  of  infamy  and  blasphemy  against 
God  the  clerical  Christian  and  theological  defenders  of  slavery, 
as  under  God's  sanction,  are  compelled  to  drive  their  argu- 
ment. The  fountains  of  the  great  deep  of  wickedness  are 
broken  up  in  the  defense  of  this  national  crime,  and  the  tops 
of  the  highest  mountains  are  so  covered  by  the  deluge,  that 
we  have  had  Christian  ministers  declaring,  in  the  zeal  of  their 
celestial  enthusiasm  in  the  slave  theology,  that  if  by  a  single 
prayer  they  could  emancipate  all  the  slaves  in  the  country, 
they  would  not  offer  it. 

APPLICATION    OF    THIS    STATUTE    TO    AMERICAN    SLAVERY. 

The  application  of  this  statute  to  the  condemnation  of 
American  slavery  and  slaveholding,  as  man-stealing,  is  inevit- 
able. It  brings  not  only  the  whole  system,  though  sanctioned 
by  human  law,  under  the  curse  and  wrath  of  God,  but  those 
who,  personally  and  individually,  practice  it  with  God's  pre- 
tended sanction.  The  taking,  the  holding,  or  the  selling  of  hu- 
man beings  as  property,  constitutes  the  very  crime  which  God 
himself  has  set  apart,  along  with  the  crime  of  murder,  for  the 
punishment  of  death.  The  act  of  slaveholdiug  is  this  very 
crime ;  the  act  of  slave-selling  is  this  very  crime.  It  is  not 
the  system  merely  or  generally,  but  the  very  act,  that  God's 
wrath  is  leveled  against ;  it  is  not  the  system  of  slavery,  but 
the  individual  act  and  practice  of  slaveholding  and  selling, 
that  God  has  sealed  with  such  terrible  reprobation  unto  death. 
It  is  the  personal,  individual  act  and  practice  of  the  crime,  and 
the  repetition  of  it,  that  makes  it  a  custom ;  and  it  is  the 
framing  of  laws  protecting  and  sustaining  it  that  organizes  it 
into  what  is  'called  an  organic  sin,  an  institution,  and  a  system. 
The  wickedness  of  the  system  lies  in  the  continued  perpetration 
of  the  act,  the  crime,  by  the  individual  slaveholder.  The  act 
of  the  crime  came  before  its  enactment,  in  stealing,  in  holding, 
in  selling  men  as  slaves.  The  act  of  slaveholding  is  the  act  of 
sin.  Without  the  individual  slaveholding  there  could  be  no 


LAW    CAN    NOT    JUSTIFY    CRIME,    BUT    DOUBLES    IT.       235 

system  of  slavery;  the  slaveholding  goes  before  the  system, 
prepares  for  it,  and  makes  it  up. 

The  slaveholding  constitutes  that  oppression  which  is  the 
subject  of  God's  wrath.  The  slave-stealing,  holding,  and  sell- 
ing came  before  any  laws,  and  against  all  law,  both  of  God  and 
man ;  afterwards  came  the  passage  of  laws  to  sanctify,  pro- 
tect, and  establish  the  crime.  Thus  legalized  and  system- 
atized, men  think  its  guilt  is  canceled,  and  that  God  no  longer 
looks  upon  the  crime  through  the  medium  of  his  own  law 
and  righteousness,  but  through  the  medium  of  human  law, 
which  thus  becomes  a  vicarious  redeemer,  to  bear  the  guilt  of 
the  violation  of  his  own  law.  God's  statute,  "Thou  shalt  not 
follow  a  multitude  to  do  evil,"  is  annuled,  and  the  combina- 
tion of  the  multitude,  with  the  consolidation  of  their  crime 
into  an  institution,  by  means  of  a  body  of  human  enactments 
defending  it,  divests  it  of  the  quality  of  guilt,  and  puts  it 
beyond  God's  reach,  secure  from  his  reprobation ! 

NO    SLAVEHOLDER    CAN    ESCAPE. 

But  no  slaveholder  can  thus  escape  the  reprobation  of  the 
Almighty.  The  fact  that  the  crime  is  erected  into  a  system, 
and  legalized,  so  far  from  removing  or  diminishing  the  guilt 
of  the  act  of  slaveholding,  is  a  terrible  increase  of  the  wicked- 
ness, over  and  above  that  of  the  individual  crime.  The  crime 
of  slaveholding  still  stands  by  itself  under  God's  wrath  ;  the 
crime  of  enacting  Taws  in  justification  and  defense  of  it,  the 
crime  of  enthroning  it  in  the  place  of  justice,  is  also  another 
and  a  gigantic  guilt  by  itself,  for  which  God  will  hold  the  na- 
tion to  account,  as  he  holds  the  individual  slaveholder  for  the 
guilt  of  man-stealing.  Human  law  can  not  possibly  make  that 
an  article  of  just  property,  which  God  has  declared  to  be  a 
robbery  punishable  with  death.  The  man  who  perpetrates 
that  robbory,  in  holding  a  fellow-creature  as  property,  as  a 
slave,  and  then  justifies  it  by  human  law,  commits  two  crimes 
instead  of  one ;  tho  crime  of  man-stealing  first,  unaltered  by 


236  CHRISTIAN    SLAVEHOLDING    IMPOSSIBLE. 

human  enactments  in  its  favor ;  the  crime  of  preferring  man's 
law  above  God's,  second,  which  is  deliberate  defiance  of  the 
Almighty,  and  adds  to  the  sin  of  disobedience  that  of  teach- 
ing it  as  righteousness ;  that  of  teaching  that  man's  law  is 
obligatory  above  God's,  and  that  man's  law  is  capable  of  trans- 
figuring into  innocence  and  duty,  what  God's  law  has  most 
explicitly  forbidden,  as  the  highest  crime. 

But  there  is  a  still  greater  exasperation  of  this  wickedness, 
that  of  justifying  it  in  the  name  of  Christianity,  that  of  seal- 
ing with  the  pretended  sanction  of  the  cross,  under  the  New 
Testament,  and  as  a  missionary  providence  and  virtue,  that 
very  crime  which  God  has  branded  under  the  Old  Testament 
by  his  own  law  as  the  highest  guilt.  The  crime  of  slavehold- 
ing  received  into  the  church,  baptized  in  the  name  of  Chi-ist, 
sanctioned  as  not  inconsistent  with  the  Christian  profession, 
is  such  a  confusion  and  chaos  of  impiety  with  holy  things,  that 
the  incongruous  monstrosities  against  which  the  Levitical 
enactments  were  leveled,  are  but  a  type  of  the  blasphemy. 
A  church  is  corrupted,  its  conscience  defiled,  and  its  piety 
must  soon  become  putrid,  that  can  admit  and  endure  the  dis- 
cord of  such  abominable  profanations,  such  abominations  of 
desolations  set  in  the  holy  place.  Men  might  as  well  talk  of 
Christian  murder  as  Christian  slaveholding,  and  of  receiving 
the  Christian  murderer  into  sacramental  and  celestial  fellow- 
ship, as  well  as  the  Christian  slaveholder. 

This  conclusion  is  inevitable  the  moment  the  definition  of 
slaveholding  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  in  the  bare  reality  of 
the  crime,  is  admitted,  and  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Chris- 
tian law  are  applied  to  it.  The  language  of  reprobation,  such 
as  has  been  employed  by  Adam  Clarke,  John  Wesley,  Dymond, 
and  others,  seems  strong  and  terrible,  but  who  can  deny  its 
justice,  admitting  the  sin  to  be  such  a  crime  as  it  is  described 
to  be  in  the  book  of  divine  revelation  ?  The  survey  of  the 
system  in  the  slave  laws,  (see  STEOUD  and  GOODELL,  with  de- 
cisions,) in  the  light  of  the  Word  of  God,  is  all  that  is  needed. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

STATUTE  FORBIDDING  THE  DELIVERY  OF  FUGITIVES.— UNIVERSALITY  AND  MEANING  or 
THIS  STATUTE. — THE  LANGUAGE  CONSIDERED. — THE  HISTORY  AS  TO  SERVANTS. — 
HEATHEN  AS  WELL  AS  HEBREW  COMPREHENDED. — BENEFICENCE  OF  THE  STATUTE. 
—A  SECURITY  OF  UNIVERSAL  FREEDOM.— FORCE  OF  THE  DEMONSTRATION  AGAINST 
THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  PROPERTY  IN  MAN. 

STATUTE   FOR  THE   PROTECTION   OF   OPPRESSED   FUGITIVES. 

THE  Mosaic  legislation,  the  more  it  is  examined,  is  seen  to 
be  a  system  of  supernatural,  divine  wisdom.  Amidst  a  con- 
geries of  particulars,  sometimes  seemingly  disconnected,  great 
underlying  and  controlling  principles  break  out.  The  prin- 
ciple revealed  in  the  statute  against  man-stealing,  is  the  same 
developed  in  the  next  statute  which  we  are  to  consider,  in  the 
order  of  the  logical  and  historical  argument  from  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures  against  slavery.  The  principle  is  that 
of  the  sacredness  of  the  human  personality,  Avhich  can  not 
be  made  an  article  of  traffic,  can  not  be  bought  and  sold,  with- 
out a  degree  of  criminality  in  the  action  like  the  criminality 
of  murder.  As  the  sacredness  of  human  life  is  guarded  by 
the  penalty  of  death  for  the  crime  of  maliciously  killing  a 
man,  so  the  sacredness  of  human  liberty,  the  property  of  a 
man's  personality,  as  residing  solely  in  himself,  is  guarded  by 
the  same  penalty  against  the  crime  of  stealing  a  man.  The 
theft  is  that  of  himself  from  himself,  and  from  God  his  Maker. 
As  murder  is  the  destruction  of  the  life,  so  man-stealing  and 
selling  is  the  destruction  of  the  personality,  the  degradation 
of  a  man  into  a  thing,  a  chattel,  an  article  of  property,  trans- 
ferred, bartered  for  a  price,  as  if  there  were  no  immortal  soul 
nor  personal  will  in  existence. 

The  statute  in  Deuteronomy,  xxiii.  15,  1C,  is  properly  to  be 


238  LANGUAGE   OF   THE   STATE. 

examined  next  after  that  in  Exodus,  xxi.  16,  and  Deuteron- 
omy, xxiv.  7.  The  whole  form  of  the  statute  is  as  follows : 
"  Thou  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his  master  the  servant  which  is 
escaped  from  his  master  unto  thee.  He  shall  dwell  with  thee, 
even  among  you,  in  that  place  which  he  shall  choose  in  one  of 
thy  gates,  where  it  liketh  him  best :  thou  shalt  not  oppress 
him."  Of  the  interpretation  of  this  statute,  there  can  not  be 
the  least  doubt ;  as  to  its  application  only  can  there  remain, 
in  any  mind,  some  little  question. 

1.    THE   LANGUAGE.      THE   SERVANT  TO    HIS   MASTER;   NOT,  THE 
SLAVE   TO    HIS    OWNER. 

The  first  thing  to  be  considered  is  the  language :  "  Thou 
shalt  not  deliver  up  the  servant  to  his  master,  which  is  es- 
caped unto  thee  from  his  master."  The  servant  to  his  master, 
•JIJTN— VN  "\ys.  It  is  not,  the  slave  to  his  owner,  or  the  heathen 
slave  to  his  owner,  which  would  have  been  the  proper  form 
of  expression,  if  either  slaves  at  any  rate  were  under  consid- 
eration, or  heathen  slaves  alone.  The  word  for  servant  is  the 
ordinary  -oj>,  and  the  word  for  his  master  is  1^'"^,  which  is 
to  be  compared  and  contrasted  with  the  word  for  owner,  V?a, 
the  latter  word  being  used  when  a  beast  or  an  article  of 
property  instead  of  a  human  being  is  spoken  of.  The  contrast 
may  be  fairly  and  fully  seen,  and  the  usage  demonstrated,  by 
comparing  Exodus,  xxi.  4,  5,  6,  8,  with  Exodus,  xxi.  28,  29, 
32,  34,  and  36,  and  likewise  Exodus,  xxii.  11,  12,  14,  15. 
Here,  in  the  first  case,  where  the  subject  is  a  human  being, 
(the  servant),  the  master,  V1^*  is  spoken  of,  but  never  the 
owner.  The  relations  and  responsibilities  are  brought  to  view 
between  master  and  servant,  but  never  between  owner  and 
slave.  But  in  the  other  cases,  where  the  subject  is  property, 
as  an  ox,  ass,  sheep,  or  article  of  raiment  or  furniture,  the 
owner,  V?5,  is  spoken  of,  not  the  master.  The  distinction  is 
one  of  purpose  and  care,  and  not  accidental ;  and  in  no  case 
is  any  such  relation  between  human  beings  brought  to  view 


HISTORY   IN   REGARD   TO    IT.  239 

as  of  the  one  being  owner  of  the  other,  with,  sanction  of  such 
relation.  The  history  of  such  relationship  is  the  history  of 
crime,  and  the  selling  of  human  beings  is  always  a  criminal 
transaction.  The  whole  transaction  of  the  selling  of  Joseph 
is  described  as  the  crime  of  stealing;  and  no  person  in  Judea 
could  ever  have  sold  any  human  being,  no  matter  by  what 
means  in  his  power,  without  the  conviction  of  doing  what  was 
forbidden  of  God.  Man-selling  was  no  more  permitted  than 
man-stealing.  Accordingly,  there  are  no  instances  of  its  be- 
ing practiced. 

Now  if  there  had  been  in  Jndea,  from  Abraham  downwards, 
the  system  of  what  we  call  slavery,  the  system  of  chattelism, 
the  purchase,  ownership,  and  sale  of  human  beings  as  articles 
of  property,  there  must  have  been  some  traces  of  such  pur- 
chase, ownership,  and  sale,  in  the  history  of  the  people.  Their 
domestic  life  is  so  fully  set  before  us,  that  if  this  system  were 
a  fixture  of  it,  the  evidence  could  not  fail  to  have  leaked  out ; 
nay,  the  proof  would  have  been  glaring.  If  this  fixture,  with 
all  its  concomitant  transactions  and  habits,  had  existed,  had 
been  maintained,  as  a  national  institute,  against  the  divine 
law,  we  should  as  certainly  have  found  it  in  the  history  and 
the  books  of  the  prophets  as  idolatry  itself;  we  do  find  it  in- 
stantly recorded,  in  the  only  case  in  which  it  was  attempted ; 
and  the  case  in  which  the  crime  was  completed  occasioned 
the  instant  vengeance  of  God,  in  the  destruction  of  the  Jew- 
ish State.  But  if  it  had  existed  by  appointment  of  the  divine 
law,  under  the  sanction  and  favor  of  God,  then  much  more 
should  we  have  found  some  traces  of  it  not  only  in  the  law 
itself,  but  in  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  people,  and  in 
their  historical  and  commercial  records. 

2.   THE    WHOLE    HISTORY    AN    ACCOUNT    OF    SERVANTS,    NOT 
SLAVES. 

But  in  the  whole  history,  from  that  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  down  through  the  whole  line  of  their  descendants,  not 


240        A  DEFENCE  FOE  HEATHEN  SERVANTS. 

one  instance  is  to  be  found  of  the  sale  of  a  man,  a  servant,  or 
a  slave.  The  only  approximations  to  such  a  thing  are  treated 
and  denounced  as  criminal ;  as,  for  example,  in  Amos,  ii.  6, 
thus  saith  the  Lord,  "  For  three  transgressions  of  Israel  and 
for  four,  I  will  not  turn  away  the  punishment  thereof,  be- 
cause they  sold  the  righteous  for  silver,  and  the  poor  for  a  pair 
of  shoes."  When  they  obtained  servants,  or  purchased  them, 
as  the  phrase  was,  they  purchased  their  time  and  labor  from 
themselves  ;  but  if  they  attempted  to  sell  them,  it  could  not 
be  done  without  stealing  them ;  it  was  making  articles  of  prop- 
erty out  of  them ;  it  was  asserting  and  violently  assuming 
ownership  in  them ;  it  was  man-stealing.  But  if  slavery  had 
been  a  legal  institution  appointed  of  God,  a  righteous  policy 
and  habit  of  the  domestic  life,  we  should  have  found  some- 
where some  traces  of  the  transactions  by  which  always  it  is 
attended  and  maintained.  We  should  have  found  mention 
not  only  of  obtaining  servants  by  contracts  made  with  them, 
but  of  buying  them  as  slaves  from  others,  and  of  ownership  in 
them,  and  of  the  sale  of  them ;  and  if  they  were  considered  in 
law  as  chattels,  as  articles  of  property,  we  should  have  found 
legal  provisions  for  reclaiming  and  securing  them  when  lost, 
fugitive,  or  stolen  ;  just  as  we  do  in  the  cases  of  oxen,  asses, 
sheep,  or  property  of  any  kind,  lost,  strayed,  or  stolen.  It 
would  not  be  possible,  for  example,  to  write  the  history  of 
laws  and  customs  in  the  United  States  for  a  single  century 
without  such  traces  of  slavery  and  of  slave -laws  corning  out. 

3.    HEATHEN    SERVANTS  AS  WELL   AS    HEBREW   COMPREHENDED 
IN  THIS   LAW. 

When,  therefore,  we  search  for  such  traces  in  the  Mosaic 
legislation,  what  do  we  stumble  upon  ?  The  first  thing  in 
regard  to  fugitives  is  this  law  before  us,  a  law  made  for  their 
protection  against  their  masters,  and  not  in  behalf  of  the  mas- 
ters, or  to  recover  their  lost  property.  The  judgment  gath- 
ered from  this  law  in  regard  to  slavery  is  in  condemnation  of 


EVEKY    YOKE   TO    BE    BROKEN.  241 

the  whole  system,  and  remains  in  full,  to  whatever  class  of 
inhabitants  the  passage  be  applied.  The  question  is,  wheth- 
er its  operation  was  intended  to  comprehend  Hebrew  serv- 
ants, or  heathen  servants  only ;  whether  it  was  a  law  for 
Judea  at  home,  or  for  the  nations  abroad,  or  equally  for 
both. 

1.  There  is  no  restriction  or  limitation  expressed ;  it  would 
have  to  be  supposed,  and  a  construction  forced  upon  the  pas- 
sage, which  the  terms  do  not  indicate,  and  will  hardly  permit. 
It  would  be  unfortunate  to  have  to  treat  any  passage  in  this 
manner,  to  make  out  a  case,  xmless  the  context  required  it,  or 
the  history  and  some  more  comprehensive  laws  enforced  it. 
Compare,  for  illustration,  the  command  in  Isaiah,  Iviii.  6,  9, 
where  it  is  enjoined:  "To  loose  the  bands  of  wickedness,  to 
undo  the  heavy  burdens,  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free,  and  that 
ye  break  every  yoke."  And  again :  "  If  thou  take  away  from 
the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke."  We  might  assert  concerning 
these  passages  that  they  referred  only  to  the  heathen,  whereas 
it  is  notorious  that  they  applied  to  abuses  and  oppressions 
committed  not  among  the  heathen,  but  in  Judea  itself,  by  the 
Hebrews  themselves,  and  not  against  strangers  only,  but 
against  their  own  countrymen,  as  in  Amos,  ii.  6,  and  viii.  6, 
Jeremiah,  xxii.  13-17,  and  Habakkuk,  i.  14-16,  and  other 
places.  But  when  it  is  said,  that  ye  breaJc  every  yoke,  it  is  not 
meant  that  the  lawful  and  appointed  contracts  with  Hebrew 
servants  or  others  were  to  be  broken  up,  for  those  were  not 
yokes,  nor  regarded  as  such ;  and  it  only  needed  the  applica- 
tion of  common  sense  to  know  perfectly  the  application  of  the 
passage  to  unjust  and  illegal  oppressions. 

But,  again,  if  a  stranger  or  a  heathen  was  thus  oppressed 
and  subjected  to  the  yoke,  it  applied  to  him,  as  well  as  to  the 
Hebrew;  and  the  distinction  was  well  known  between  op- 
pressive and  involuntary  servitude,  which  was  forbidden  of 
God,  and  the  voluntary  service  for  paid  wages  or  purchase 
money,  as  appointed  by  the  law.  The  command,  to  take  away 

11 


242  DEFENCE   OF   THE   FUGITIVE. 

the  yoke  from  the  midst  of  thee,  applies  to  every  form  of 
bondage  imposed  upon  any  persons  whatsoever  in  the  land, 
contrary  to  the  divine  law,  and  without  agreement  on  the 
part  of  the  servant.  The  fugitive  from  such  oppression  was 
to  be  relieved  and  protected,  and  not  delivered  back  to  bond- 
age. The  Hebrew  is  emphatic,  n&'*j  tfs'ima  TOF-DN,  if  thou 
remove  from  the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke ;  the  yoke  in  thine 
own  country,  not  in  a  heathen  country.  And  so,  in  the  stat- 
ute before  us,  the  oppression,  the  escape,  and  the  protection 
are  neither,  nor  all,  exclusive  of  Hebrews. 

2.  But,  second,  it  is  contended  by  some  that  this  is  merely 
a  law  to  prevent  heathen  slaves  that  were  escaping  into  the 
land  of  Judea  from  being  sent  back  to  their  heathen  masters. 
It  certainly  comprehends  this  class  of  persons,  and  this  would 
be  an  inevitable  result  of  its  operation,  at  any  rate,  whether 
Hebrew  servants  were  excluded  or  not.  But  no  intimation  can 
be  found,  either  in  the  text,  the  context,  or  the  whole  history, 
of  its  application  being  restricted  to  the  heathen.  The  word 
in  this  statute  used  for  servant  is  12%.  It  is  not  a  statute  con- 
cerning the  hired  servant,  the  T>5»,  nor  the  six  years'  hired 
servant,  who  could  not  be  compelled  to  remain  at  service  any 
longer  than  that  period,  but  was  free  as  soon  as  his  engage- 
ment was  over.  It  certainly  could  not  apply  to  him,  for  he 
received  his  pay  from  his  master  beforehand,  and  the  law 
would  have  been  an  incentive  to  dishonesty  and  villainy,  if  he 
could  have  received  his  six  years'  wages,  on  entering  into  cov- 
enant of  service,  and  the  next  week  could  have  decamped  from 
his  master  with  the  money  in  his  pocket,  secure  against  being 
retaken.  Such  a  person  was  not  the  nay  contemplated  in  this 
law,  nor  could  there  have  been  any  danger  of  its  being  so  per- 
verted. At  the  same  time,  the  proofs  are  numerous  that  in 
the  land  of  Judea,  among  the  Hebrews  themselves,  there  were, 
and  would  be,  persons  unjustly  held  as  servants  beyond  their 
time  of  service,  as  contracted  for,  persons  oppressed  in  such 
bondage,  and  for  whose  protection  such  a  statute  as  the  fugi- 


SAFEGUARD  FOB  THE  SERVANTS.  243 

tive  law  before  us,  might  be  more  necessary  than  for  persons 
fleeing  from  idolatrous  masters  in  heathen  lands. 

3.  In  the  third  place,  then,  we  must  remember  that  there 
were  servants  in  Judea,  both  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  heathen, 
whose  term  of  service  was  not  limited  to  six  years,  but  ex- 
tended, with  somewhat  more  undefined  dominion  of  the  mas- 
ter, to  the  jubilee.  There  were  servants  of  all  work,  inden- 
tured servants,  bound,  by  their  own  contract,  for  the  whole 
number  of  years  intervening  between  the  time  of  the  contract 
and  the  jubilee.  These  were  mostly  of  heathen  families,  though 
also  of  Hebrew,  and  were  much  more  in  the  power  of  their 
masters  for  ill  treatment  and  oppression,  if  they  were  cruelly 
disposed.  Now  it  is  most  likely  that  the  statute  in  question 
was  interposed  for  the  protection  of  just  this  class  of  servants 
from  the  cruelty  of  their  masters ;  servants,  the  nature  and  the 
term  of  whose  service  was,  to  such  a  degree,  undefined  and 
unlimited.  There  certainly  was  such  a  kind  of  service,  and 
such  a  class  of  servants,  to  which  and  to  whom  the  expression 
nijjj  and  service  of  an  is?  peculiarly  applied.  See,  for  exam- 
ple, Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  40  :  The  Hebrew  servant,  contracting 
till  the  jubilee,  shall  not  be  compelled  to  serve  with  the  serv- 
ice of  an  nay,  the  servant  of  all  work,  but  as  a  hired  servant 
and  a  sojourner.  But  the  term  of  service  was  unlimited,  ex- 
cept by  the  jubilee;  and  so,  in  some  respects,  was  the  power 
of  the  master. 

The  statute  before  us  seems  to  have  been  passed  for  the 
protection  of  such  servants  from  the  possible  cruelty  of  their 
masters.  Although  it  was  not  deemed  best  entirely  to  abol- 
ish that  kind  and  tenure  of  servitude,  but  to  lay  it  mainly  up- 
on the  idolatrous  nations  who  were  to  be  conquered  by  the 
Jews ;  yet  G'od  imposed  such  protective  safeguards  in  respect 
to  it  as  would  keep  it  from  being  a  cruel  and  unjust  treatment, 
even  of  them ;  such  safeguards  that  the  masters  should  find 
kindness  toward  their  servants  not  only  commanded  by  the 
letter  and  spirit  of  the  law,  but  the  only  safe  and  profitable 


244  A   STATUTE   SECURING   FREEDOM. 

policy.  Therefore  it  was  enacted  that,  if  any  servant  chose  to 
flee  from  a  tyrannical  and  cruel  master,  and  could  succeed  in 
getting  away,  the  master  should  not  be  able  by  law  to  recover 
him,  should  not  be  able  to  force  him  back ;  or,  at  all  events, 
that  none  should  be  obliged  to  return  him  to  his  master  ;  on 
the  contrary,  that  those  to  whom  he  might  flee  from  the  op- 
pression of  a  cruel  master,  should  be  bound  to  protect  him, 
should  not  be  permitted  to  deliver  him  up,  but  should  give 
him  shelter,  and  suffer  him  to  dwell  in  safety,  wherever  he 
chose,  without  oppressing  him. 

BENEFICENCE     OF    THIS    STATUTE. A    SECURITY    OF    UNIVERSAL 

• 

FREEDOM. 

This  beneficent  statute  was,  in  this  view,  a  keystone  for  the 
arch  of  freedom,  which  the  Jewish  legislation  was  appointed 
to  rear  in  the  midst  of  universal  despotism  and  slavery ;  it 
formed  a  security  for  the  keeping  of  all  the  other  many  pro- 
visions in  favor  of  those  held  to  labor  or  domestic  service  ;  it 
opened  a  gate  of  refuge  for  the  oppressed,  and  operated  as  a 
powerful  restraint  against  the  cruelty  of  the  tyrannical  master. 
There  might  be  cruelty  and  tyranny  in  tfhe  land  of  Judea,  but 
there  was  a  legal  escape  from  it ;  the  servant,  the  nt3>,  if  men 
attempted  to  treat  him  as  a  slave,  could  quit  and  choose  his 
master,  was  not  compelled  to  abide  in  bondage,  was  not 
hunted  as  a  fugitive,  nay,  by  law,  was  protected  from  being  so 
hunted,  and  everywhere,  on  his  escape,  found  friends  in  every 
dwelling,  and  a  friend  and  protector  in  the  law. 

It  is  impossible  that  such  a  provision  as  this  should  be  made 
only  in  regard  to  the  heathen  slaves  of  the  Canaanites,  or  of 
the  nations  around  Judea,  since  the  Jews  were  forbidden  to 
enter  into  any  treaties  with  the  Canaanites,  and  were  com- 
manded to  bring  under  tribute  of  service  as  many  of  them  as 
were  spared.  Their  whole  legislation,  in  regard  to  all  the 
heathen,  was  by  no  means  that  of  amity  with  masters  or 
kings,  but  of  opposition  and  of  jealousy  against  them.  They 


NEED    OF   THIS   LAW   FOR   FUGITIVES.  245 

were  forbidden  to  enter  into  covenant  with  them.  Nor  was 
there  any  more  need  of  a  statute  for  not  restoring  heathen 
slaves  that  had  fled  into  the  country  of  the  Hebrews,  than 
there  would  be  of  a  law  in  Great  Britain  for  not  restoring  the 
slaves  of  Egypt,  or  of  the  South  Sea  islanders,  or  of  the  canni- 
bals or  savages  in  New  Zealand,  that  had  got  away  from  their 
masters.  But  there  might  be  need  of  such  a  law  among  the 
Hebrews,  to  mitigate  the  evils  of  servitude,  to  preserve  the 
nss,  the  indentured  servant  of  all  work,  from  cruelty  and  op- 
pression, to  prevent  his  service  from  passing  into  slavery,  and 
to  render  it  for  the  master's  interest  to  treat  him  well  and 
kindly,  as  knowing  that,  if  he  did  not,  the  injured  servant 
could  escape  from  him,  and  seek  another  master,  with  impu- 
nity. So,  if  he  would  not  lose  him  altogether,  he  was  com- 
pelled to  treat  him  kindly. 

There  was  no  such  law  as  this,  no  such  humane  statute, 
among  the  heathen;  and  hence  the  heathen  masters  were 
ferocious  despots  and  were  accustomed  to  restore  fugitive 
slaves,  even  for  the  support  of  the  system  of  slavery,  that 
there  might  be  neither  relief  nor  release  from  their  own  au- 
thority, nor  restraint  nor  check  upon  their  own  cruelty.  Ac- 
cordingly we  see  the  terror  of  the  Egyptian  slave  whom  Da- 
vid encountered  after  the  foray  upon  Ziklag,  lest  he  should  be 
sent  back  to  his  master,  1  Samuel,  xxx.  15.  The  slave  called 
himself  a  young  man  of  Egypt,  •»•;*»  nss,  the  servant  na»,  to  an 
Amalekite,  1  Samuel,  xxx.  11,  and  his  master  had  left  him  to 
die,  because  he  fell  sick.  He  made  David  swear  that  he  would 
not  send  him  back  into  that  slavery.  There  was  no  such  sys- 
tem of  slavery  among  the  Hebrews,  and,  with  this  humane 
law,  there  could  be  none.  The  operation  of  this  law,  in  con- 
nection with  other  statutes,  was  certain,  at  length,  to  destroy 
all  remains  of  slavery  among  the  people,  and  to  make  all  with- 
in the  limits  of  the  Hebrew  nation  wholly  free.  To  bring 
about  this  desirable  end,  God  so  surrounded  the  system  of 
servitude  with  wholesome  checks,  and  entangled  and  crippled 


246  AGAINST   PROPERTY    IN   MAN. 

it  with  such  meshes  of  benevolent  legislation,  such  careful  pro- 
tection of  the  servants,  such  guardianship  of  their  rights,  such 
admission  of  them  to  all  the  privileges  of  the  covenant,  such 
instruction  of  them,  and  such  adoption  of  them  at  length  as 
Hebrews,  even  when  they  were  foreigners  at  first,  that,  in 
that  land,  among  that  people,  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as 
that  system  of  injustice,  cruelty,  and  robbery,  which  we  call 
slavery.  It  did  not,  and  it  could  not,  exist. 

FORCE    OF   THE   DEMONSTRATION  FROM   THIS   STATUTE   AGAINST 
THE   POSSIBILITY    OF   PROPERTY   IN   MAN. 

This  law,  like  the  grand  statute  against  man-stealing,  strikes 
at  the  principle  of  property  in  man.  It  shows  that  God  would 
not  permit  human  beings  to  be  regarded  as  property,  as  slaves 
in  our  day  are  considered  property.  Even  if  they  had  been 
called  slaves,  it  is  clear  that  their  masters  were  not  considered 
to  be  their  owners,  for  they  could  take  themselves  off  at  pleas- 
ure, if  oppressed,  and  nevertheless  no  wrong  was  charged 
upon  them  for  thus  escaping  from  bondage.  They  did  not 
belong  to  the  master  in  such  manner  that  wherever  found  he 
had  a  claim  upon  them,  and  they  must  be  given  back.  When 
they  fled  away,  they  were  not  considered  as  having  stolen 
themselves ;  and  the  man  who  found  them  neither  acquired 
any  claim  over  them  himself,  nor  was  under  any  obligation  to 
the  master  to  return  them  or  to  inform  against  them.  The 
master,  in  such  a  case,  was  not  the  owner.* 

*  SAALSCHTJTZ,    Das    Mos.    Itecht,  laws  of  other  ancient   and  modern 

Laws   of  Moses,  Vol.    II.,  ch.  ci.,  p.  States,   where  bondage  and   slavery 

697.    He  remarks  that  as  the  laws  have  prevailed  at  the  absolute  will  of 

were    successively    published,    they  the  master.      Slavery,  in  the  sense  of 

took  under  their  protection,  in  every  opposition  to  freedom,  ho  says  is  not 

relation,  the  manly  worth  and  feeling  found  in  the  Mosaic  polity,  nor  has 

of  those  who  served ;  and  the  people  the  Hebrew  language  any  word  for 

were  forbidden  from  delivering  up  the  slave.     Compare,  for  the  system  and 

fugitive,  on  any  consideration,  or  from  its  details,  STROUD,  Slave  Code,  and 

doing  according  to  the  customs  and  GOODELL,  American  Slave  Laws. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

DEMONSTRATION  CONTINUED  AGAINST  PROPERTY  IN  MAN. — DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  MAS- 
TERSHIP OF  SERVANTS  AND  OWNERSHIP  OF  SIIEZP. — BENEVOLENT  INTENTION  OF  TUB 
STATUTE  PROTECTING  THE  FUGITIVE. — VIOLATION  OF  IT  BY  THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVK 
BILL  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. — HISTORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  TIIE  STATUTE. — ITS 
VIOLATION  BY  TIIE  JEWS,  AND  THEIR  PUNISHMENT. 

DEMONSTRATION   AGAINST  PROPERTY   IN   MAN. 

THE  prodigious  power  of  demonstration  in  this  statute 
against  the  possibility  of  property  in  man  can  not  be  seen  but 
on  a  close  comparison  of  it  with  the  divine  laws  concerning 
the  restoration  of  lost  or  stolen  articles  of  property.  The 
statute  in  regard  to  a  MAN  escaping  from  thralldom  was  ex- 
plicit :  THOU  SHALT  NOT  RESTORE  HIM  TO  HIS  MASTER.  Owner 

there  was  none;  no  such  possibility  was  admitted. 

But  in  regard  to  A  THING,  the  statute  was  equally  explicit, 
the  contrary  way :  THOU  SHALT  RESTORE  ALL  MANNER  OF  LOST 
THINGS,  whether  found  or  stolen.  All  manner  of  property 
was  to  be  restored  ;  but  no  human  being,  for  a  man  could  not 
be  property.  Examining  these  statutes,  it  will  be  seen  at  once 
what  a  difference  is  made  between  the  mastership  of  a  man 
over  his  servants,  and  ownership  over  his  cattle,  his  lands,  his 
houses,  and  all  riches.  Exodus,  xxiii.  4  :  "If  thou  meet  thine 
enemy's  ox  or  his  ass  going  astray,  thou  shalt  surely  bring  it 
back  to  him  again."  So  in  Deuteronomy  :  "  Thou  shalt  not 
see  thy  brother's  ox  or  his  sheep  go  astray,  and  hide  thyself 
from  them ;  thou  shalt  in  any  case  bring  them  again  unto  thy 
brother.  And  if  thy  brother  be  not  nigh  unto  thee,  or  if  thou 
know  him  not,  then  thou  sbalt  bring  it  unto  thine  own  house, 
and  it  shall  be  with  thee  until  thy  brother  seek  after  it,  and 


248  RESTORATION    OF   PROPERTY. 

thou  shalt  restore  it  to  him  again.  In  like  manner  shalt  thou 
do  with  his  ass  ;  and  so  shalt  thou  do  with  his  raiment ;  and 
with  all  lost  things  of  thy  brother's,  which  he  has  lost  and 
thou  hast  found,  shalt  thou  do  likewise  ;  thou  mayest  not  hide 
thyself."  Deuteronomy,  xxii.  1-3. 

Now  as  to  the  force  of  this  demonstration  that  men  can  not 
be  property,  that  men-servants  and  maid-servaiits  were  not 
and  could  not  be  the  property  of  their  masters,  it  makes  no 
difference  whether  this  statute  be  restricted  to  the  heathen  or 
not.  It  was  incumbent  on  the  Jew,  if  he  saw  the  ox  or  the 
ass,  even  of  his  enemy,  even  of  a  heathen,  or  a  stranger,  going 
astray,  to  inform  him  of  it,  or  bring  the  animal  back :  it  be- 
longed to  the  man  who  had  lost  it,  from  whose  power  it  had 
escaped.  But  if  the  servant  of  the  same  man,  worth  to  him 
fourfold,  escaped  from  him,  and  the  Jew  knew  it,  there  was 
not  only  no  obligation  to  let  the  master  know,  or  to  help  re- 
turn the  fugitive,  but  a  direct  command  from  God  not  to  do 
this,  but  on  the  contrary  to  aid  and  protect  the  fugitive.  It 
is  impossible  to  deny  or  condemn  more  forcibly  the  assump- 
tion of  property  in  man.  Yet  that  is  the  assumption  on  which 
slavery  is  grounded,  and  if  God  condemns  the  one,  he  does 
the  other. 

It  is  plain  that  if  a  slave  were  a  thing,  or  if  there  had  been 
such  a  thing  as  a  slave  recognized,  such  a  possibility  as  that 
of  property  in  man,  there  would  have  been  no  withdrawing 
that  kind  of  thing,  that  kind  of  property,  from  under  the  op- 
eration of  these  laws ;  the  obligation  was  universal,  of  restor- 
ing all  lost  things,  and  the  law  would  inevitably  have  read, 
Thou  shalt  especially  restore  unto  his  owner  his  lost  slave.  In- 
stead of  that,  it  reads,  Thou  shalt  not  restore  him,  nor  oppress 
him.  If  he  could  have  been  property,  then  he  would  have 
been  the  most  valuable  of  all  property,  and  the  men  detaining 
him  from  his  owner  would  have  been  the  greatest  -of  all 
thieves.  If  he  could  have  been  property,  as  an  ox  or  a  sheep 

| 

is  property,  then  the  obligation  to  restore  him  to  his  owner 


PROPERTY   IN   MAN   IMPOSSIBLE.  249 

would  have  been  as  much  greater  as  a  man  is  more  valuable 
than  a  sheep. 

But  he  could  not  be ;  the  claim  of  property  in  man  was  in- 
admissible, it  was  piracy,  it  was  man-stealing $  and  he  that 
stole,  sold,  or  held  a  human  being  as  a  slave,  was  inevitably  to 
be  put  to  death.  The  claim  of  property  in  man  was  such  a 
crime  that  any  connivance'  with  it  was  worthy  of  death ;  and 
any  legal  toleration  or  establishment  of  its  possibility,  would 
be  a  wrong  against  man  so  immeasurable,  and  a  sin  against 
God  so  infinite,  that  to  admit  it  even  by  implication  in  a  just 
code  was  impossible.  God  forbade  the  very  supposition  of 
property  in  man. 

GRANDEUR    AND    BENEVOLENCE    OF    THIS    STATUTE. 

This  glorious  fugitive  la\v,  enshrining  this  majestic  impossi- 
bility of  property  in  man,  stands  by  itself  in  the  divine  code, 
terse,  whole,  angular  and  perfect,  as  well  defined  and  indis- 
putable as  a  diamond  in  its  setting.  It  is  a  suitable  c<5mpanion 
for  the  law  against  man-stealing,  completing  the  demonstration 
against  slavery,  and  with  the  running  fiery  commentary  of  the 
prophets,  denouncing  this  and  every  form  of  oppression,  will 
for  ever  remain  among  the  most  convincing  proofs  of  a  divine 
revelation.  What  enmity  and  treachery  towards  God,  what 
wanton  malignity  towards  man,  are  involved  in  the  attempt 
to  prevent  and  falsify  the  meaning,  or  to  deny  the  application 
and  authority  of  these  sacred  statutes !  He  that  labors  to 
hide  or  strike  away  such  radiant  seals  of  divinity  in  the  Scrip- 
tures is  worse  than  an  infidel. 

VIOLATION    OF    TUIS    STATUTE    BY    THE    FUGITIVE    SLAVE    BILL 
OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  every  Christian  State 
would  rejoice  in  such  legislation,  and  copy  the  same  in  its  own 
jurisprudence.  For  the  Hebrew  statute,  as  revealed  and  en- 
joined directly  from  Jehovah,  must  inevitably  contain,  it  can 

11* 


260  HUMAX   LAW   DEFYING   GOD. 

not  be  denied,  the  exposition  and  concentration  of  perfect 
justice  and  benevolence;  an  example  of  the  will  of  God  and 
the  way  of  righteousness  in  this  thing,  for  all  generations  and 
all  nations.  It  is  a  fountain  star,  an  orb  of  light  divine,  hung 
in  the  firmament  of  God's  own  legislation  for  his  own  people, 
the  object  of  all  that  legislation  being  to  train  them  more 
and  more  perfectly  for  his  service,  to  bring  them  more  com- 
pletely away  from  the  example  and  the  power  of  human 
depravity,  and  to  prepare  them  to  reflect,  as  in  a  mirror, 
the  glory  of  his  truth,  righteousness,  and  goodness  in  the 
world. 

Now,  in  the  place  of  that  orb  of  light,  the  United  States 
government  and  people  have  hung  up,  in  the  fugitive  slave 
bill,  in  the  firmament  of  their  legislation,  a  perfect  orb  of  cru- 
elty and  darkness.  It  is  one  of  the  most  complete  and  finished 
examples  ever  known  on  earth  of  a  Christian  nation  deliber- 
ately ignoring  and  defying  the  instructions  vouchsafed  from 
heaven,  and  in  the  very  face  of  those  divine  teachings  on  a 
subject  of  universal  and  fundamental  morality  between  man 
and  man,  proceeding  on  principles  contrary  to  the  divine  be- 
nevolence, and  enacting  laws  contrary  to  the  divine  law;  just 
as  absolutely  contrary  as  they  possibly  could  be  made.  If  the 
intention  had  been  absolute,  to  contradict  Heaven,  and  thwart 
the  purposes  of  God,  the  statute  could  not  have  been  more 
cunningly  contrived. 

The  divinely  revealed  statute  was  enacted  by  command 
of  God  to  shield  the  weaker  party  from  cruelty  and  op- 
pression. The  statute  of  this  Christian  country  was  enacted 
by  inspiration  and  command  of  the  oppressor,  to  secure  and 
establish  him  more  completely  in  his  oppression,  and  to  ren- 
der it  impossible  for  the  victims  of  such  oppression  to 
escape. 

God's  statute  was  framed  that  if  the  victim  should  escape, 
he  should  not  be  recaptured.  The  statute  of  this  Christian 
republic  was  passed,  that  if  the-victim  should  escape,  Christian 


HEREDITARY   CRUELTY   BY   LA.W.  251 

men  should  be  forbidden  to  aid  him,  and  compelled  to  bring 
him  back  again  to  bondage. 

God's  statute  sympathizes  with  the  oppressed.  This  Chris- 
tian statute  sympathizes  with  the  oppressor.  It  was  rightly 
declared  by  a  slave  commissioner  and  judge,  in  the  act  of  sen- 
tencing a  fugitive  under  this  law,  that  there  being  no  principle 
of  Christian  chanty  in  it,  no  appeal  could  be  taken  to  Chris- 
tian chanty  against  it. 

God's  statute  was  framed  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  a 
covenanted  and  voluntary  service  passing  into  the  enforced 
and  involuntary  servitude  of  slavery.  The  statute  of  this 
Christian  nation  was  framed  to  prevent  slavery  from  the  pos- 
sibility of  any  alleviation,  or  transformation  into  free,  volun- 
tary, just  and  righteous  service.  • 

God's  statute  was  framed  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  build- 
ing upon  the  service  of  a  freeman  a  claim  to  the  service  of  a 
slave,  or  upon  a  contract  with  the  parent  a  claim  to  the  serv- 
ice of  the  child.  The  statute  of  this  Christian  country  was 
framed  to  subject  the  man,  once  stolen,  to  hopeless  bondage, 
and  the  parent  to  the  operation  of  a  compound  oppression, 
that,  through  him,  descends  with  aggravated  power  upon  his 
children  and  his  children's  children. 

This  hereditary  cruelty  is  the  most  infernal  feature  of  its 
infamy  and  wickedness.  For  this  law,  by  the  most  infamous 
fraud  and  robbery  ever  perpetrated  under  heaven,  taking 
advantage  of  the  wrong,  that  in  acknowledged  defiance  of 
natural  right,  and  common  justice  and  humanity,  gave  posses- 
sion of  the  parent,  fastens,  through  him,  and  without  shadow 
of  law,  whether  in  letter  or  in  spirit,  nay,  against  both  the 
spirit  and  letter  of  the  Constitution,  its  teeth  upon  his  off- 
spring. 

Under  cover  of  the  phrase,  persons  owing  service  and  es- 
caping shall  be  returned  to  the  party  to  whom  such  service  is 
due,  the  parents  themselves  are  not  only  returned  to  the  op- 
pressor from  whom  they  had  escaped,  but  the  torture  of  this 


252  PERVERSION    OF   THE   CONSTITUTION. 

oppression,  the  complicated  fangs  of  this  viper-knotted  scourge 
of  law,  strike  and  are  riveted  within  the  sacred  vail  of  un- 
born life.  The  pincers  and  forceps  of  the  demon  of  slavery 
are  the  instruments  by  which,  under  this  Christian  legalized 
surgery  of  hell,  the  pledges  of  the  slave-mother's  love  are 
born  into  the  world.  The  brand  of  this  cruelty  is  burned  in 
before  the  chattel-babe  has  seen  the  light,  and  the  Constitu- 
tion, perverted  for  this  purpose,  descends  upon  that  stamp, 
under  forgery  of  service  due  (!!!)  under  seal  and  sanction  of  , 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Justice ;  and  the  whole  power  of  the 
government  is  flung  down  upon  it,  to  send  the  image  and  su- 
perscription through  all  generations.  Under  forgery  of  service 
due,  the  Constitution  is  distorted  into  a  vast  piracy ;  and  un- 
der such  torture  «md  perversion,  the  government  and  people 
have  concocted  a  law  diabolically  contrary  to  the  divine  law, 
and  subversive  of  every  principle  of  Christian  morals,  every 
instinct  of  natural  humanity,  and  every  obligation  of  Christian 
charity.  It  is  a  law  affirming  that  slavery  is  service  due,  and 
that  the  returning  of  stolen  property  to  the  thief  becomes, 
when  the  article  stolen  is  a  human  being,  a  national  obliga- 
tion ! 

With  the  infamous  crime  of  child-stealing  foisted  into  it, 
the  Constitution  itself  becomes  a  kidnapping  instrument ;  and 
if  there  were  anywhere  on  earth  a  constitution  made  for  such 
villainy,  a  constitution  concentrating,  justifying,  and  perpetu- 
ating such  a  crime,  it  would  be  the  enemy  of  the  human  race, 
and  ought  to  be  outlawed  from  human  society,  broken  up  and 
destroyed,  as  you  would  a  den  of  pirates.  There  is  no  such 
iniquity  in  our  Constitution,  there  never  was  designed  to  be, 
there  never  can  be ;  and  yet  the  slaveocracy  have  succeeded 
in  boring  a  place  for  it,  and  laying  the  eggs  of  the  monster ; 
and  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  hatches  it  into  life,  full  grown. 
By  this  perversion  of  the  Constitution,  and  this  enactment 
fostering  and  securing  it,  we  have  become,  not  so  much  a  na- 
tion of  man-stealers  as  of  child-stealers,  infant-thieves.  When 


CHALLENGE  BEFORE  JUDGES.  253 

the  Roman  Church  commit  this  sin  against  a  single  Jewish 
child,  it  is  an  outrage  on  the  moral  sense  of  the  world ;  but 
when  the  church  of  the  slaveocracy  practice  it  on  the  children 
of  millions,  then  it  is  God's  grand  providential  missionary  in- 
stitute ! 

ILLUSTRATIONS    AND    PROOFS    OF    GOD'S    STATUTE     FROM    THE 
HISTORY. 

We  may  add  that,  if  the  servant  in  any  class,  either  the 
na»,  or  the  "vso,  had  been  regarded  as  property,  and  if  the 
law  against  the  recapture  or  restoration  of  fugitive  servants 
was  intended  only  with  reference  to  foreigners,  and  did  not 
apply  to  the  Hebrews,  then  must  the  exception  necessarily 
have  been  made  clear  in  such  a  statute  as  Deuteronomy,  xxii. 
1-3.  "  All  lost  things"  of  his  brother's,  a  Hebrew  was  bound 
to  restore ;  and  if  slaves  were  property,  and  the  Hebrews  had 
held  slaves,  then  inevitably  must  lost  or  escaped  slaves  have 
been  enumerated  as  among  the  things  to  be  restored.  Com- 
pare Exodus,  xxii.  9  :  "  For  all  manner  of  trespass,  whether  it 
be  for  ox,  for  ass,  for  sheep,  for  raiment,  or  for  any  manner  of 
lost  thing,  which  another  challengeth  to  be  his,  the  cause  of 
both  parties  shall  come  before  the  judges,  and  whom  the 
judges  shall  condemn,  he  shall  pay  double  unto  his  neigh- 
bor." If  men  had  not  been  forbidden  thus  to  challenge  the 
fugitive,  I??,  the  escaping  servant,  as  their  property,  a  like 
provision  must  inevitably  have  been  made  for  trying  this  claim 
also  before  the  judges.  But  in  the  whole  history  of  the  He- 
brews, there  are  no  instances  on  record  of  the  reclamation  of 
fugitive  slaves  in  their  country,  under  their  laws.  There  are 
cases  mentioned  of  servants  escaping ;  and  the  statute  itself 
was  the  supposition  that  they  would  escape,  and  formed  a  pro- 
tection and  a  safeguard  for  them ;  but  there  is  never  a  case 
named,  nor  any  intimation  of  any  such  event,  of  a  master 
hunting  for  slaves,  going  in  search  of,  or  reclaiming,  his  run- 
away property,  in  the  country  of  the  Hebrews.  There  are 


254  NABAL'S  COMPLAINT  TO  DAVID. 

instances  of  men  going  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  to  hunt  up 
and  reclaim  an  ox  or  an  ass,  but  never  a  hint  of  any  such  thing 
as  a  man  hunting,  or  reclaiming,  or  recapturing,  a  fugitive 
servant. 

And  yet,  from  incidental  testimony,  the  more  striking  be- 
cause it  falls  out  naturally  in  the  course  of  the  history  of 
David,  we  said  that  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  for  servants 
to  escape,  and  to  be  going  at  large,  unmolested.  Nabal's 
complaint  to  the  messengers  of  David  proves  this:  "  There  be 
many  servants,  &•>-.:=?.,  nowadays,  that  break  away  every  man 
from  his  master,"  1  Samuel,  xxv.  10  ;  and  the  manner  of  the 
complaint  argues  the  anger  of  Nabal  because  such  a  thing 
could  be,  and  the  servants  get  off  with  impunity.  But  no  in- 
stance can  be  found  of  any  man  undertaking,  with  marshals, 
or  otherwise,  to  recapture  them.  There  is  no  hint  of  any  posse 
comitatus  at  the  disposal  of  the  master  for  this  purpose.  Had 
there  been  such  a  thing  as  a  Fugitive  Slave  Law  against  the 
slave,  instead  of  one  for  his  protection,  Nabal's  language  would 
rather  have  been  that  of  threatening,  than  complaint.  "  You 
rogues,  if  you  do  not  take  yourselves  off,  I  will  have  you  ar- 
rested as  fugitive  slaves,  such  as  you  doubtless  are,  you  va- 
grant rascals.  I  will  have  you  lodged  in  the  county  jail,  and, 
if  your  master  does  not  appear,  you  shall  be  sold  to  pay  the 
jail  fees."  But  ISTabal's  language  is  that  of  "  a  son  of  Belial," 
who  is  furious  because  there  is  no  help  for  such  insubordina- 
tion against  tyranny. 

THE    CASE    OF    SHIMEI,    CURSING   AND    SLAVE-HUNTING. 

The  case  of  Shimei  must  be  considered  in  illustration,  be- 
cause, at  first  thought,  it  might  seem  to  be  an  exception,  and 
might  appear  as  an  instance  of  reclamation.  1  Kings,  ii.  39, 
40.  Two  of  the  servants,  diia?— • >:»,  of  Shimei  ran  away  to 
Achish,  king  of  Gath,  son  of  Maachah,  and  from  thence  infor- 
mation* came  to  Shimei;  and  in  his  blind  haste  to  recapture 
these  runaways,  forgetting  or  despising  his  oath  to  Solomon, 


SHIMEI   AND   HIS    SERVANTS.  255 

he  saddled  his  ass  and  went  to  Gath,  and  found  his  "servants, 
and  brought  them  back  to  Jerusalem.  It  is  no  wonder,  from 
the  description  given  of  Shimei's  cursed  manners  and  dispo- 
sition, that  his  servants,  even  purchased,  as  they  may  have 
been,  from  the  heathen,  could  not  endure  his  service,  but  pre- 
ferred to  run  away  even  into  a  heathen  country ;  and  it  is  not 
a  little  singular  that  the  first  and  only  instance  of  a  slave- 
hunter  figuring  in  sacred  history  is  that  of  this  condemned  liar, 
hypocrite,  and  blasphemer.  But  he  captures  his  servants  in 
the  country  of  the  Philistines,  and  not  in  a  land  under  Hebrew 
law.  Doubtless,  they  were  foreigners  and  heathen,  not  He- 
brews, or  they  would  not  have  fled  away  to  Achish,  king  of 
Gath  ;  they  would  have  been  secure  against  Shimei's  claim  in 
their  own  country,  but  there  was  no  law  for  the  protection  of 
slaves  in  the  land  of  the  Philistines ;  and,  although  they  im- 
agined themselves  more  secure  from  pursuit  there,  especially 
as  they  must  have  known  that  their  master  himself  was  a  pris- 
oner of  slate  within  certain  limits  in  Jerusalem,  yet  the  rage 
of  Shimei  defeated  their  calculations,  and  they  were  brought 
back.  It  may  have  been  by  some  friendship  of  Achish  with 
Shimei,  and  a  spite  against  king  Solomon,  that  this  was  ac- 
complished, which  made  king  Solomon  the  more  ready  to  in- 
flict upon  Shiraei,  without  any  further  reprieve,  the  sentence 
he  had  brought  upon  himself. 

The  history  in  2  Chronicles,  xxviii.  8-15,  has  an  important 
bearing  in  illustration  of  this  and  other  statutes,  especially 
those  for  the  protection  of  the  Hebrews  from  becoming  slaves. 
The  kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel  were  at  war,  and  the  latter 
had  taken  captive  of  the  former  two  hundred  thousand,  whom 
they  proposed  to  keep  for  bondmen  and  bondwomen,  the 
ordinary  fate  of  those  taken  captive  in  war.  But  the  fierce 
wrath  of  God  was  instantly  threatened,  if  they  carried  this 
intended  crime  into  execution  ;  and  some  able  and  patriotic 
leaders  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  resisted  the  proposition  with 
such  effectual  energy,  that  the  men  of  the  army  left  "the  cap- 


256  EVASIONS   OP  THE  LAW. 

tives  to  their  disposal;  whereupon  they  generously  clothed 
and  fed  them,  and  carried  them  back  free  to  their  own  coun- 
try. The  intention  had  been,  contrary  to  the  divine  law,  to 
bring  them  into  bondage  in  a  manner  expressly  forbidden.  It 
is  to  be  feared  that  in  some  instances  the  legal  prohibitions 
against  such  slavery  had  already  been  set  at  defiance  both  by 
rulers  and  people  in  the  two  kingdoms ;  but  never  yet  had 
the  attempt  been  made  in  so  bold  and  public  a  manner,  and 
on  so  huge  a  scale,  to  override  the  laws. 

VIOLATIONS    OF   THE   LAWS   BY^  OPPRESSION. 

There  are  very  decisive  intimations,  however,  that  look  as 
if  this  iniquity  of  a  forced  and  continued  bondage,  by  which 
the  Jewish  masters  retained  their  servants  contrary  to  law, 
had  become,  at  a  later  period,  one  of  the  great  outstanding 
crimes  of  the  nation.  After  the  divulsion  of  the  kingdom  into 
two,  those  persons  unjustly  held  in  bondage  would  be  likely 
to  take  refuge  from  cruel  taskmasters  in  one  kingdom  by  flee- 
ing into  the  other ;  and  the  law  in  Deuteronomy  was  unques- 
tionable and  explicit :  "  Thou  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his  mas- 
ter the  servant  which  is  escaped  from  his  master  unto  thee. 
He  shall  dwell  with  thee  where  it  liketh  him  best.  Thou 
shalt  not  oppress  him."  Contrary  to  this  great  statute  of  Je- 
hovah, there  may  have  been  compacts  or  compromises  between 
the  two  kingdoms  for  the  delivering  up  of  such  fugitive  ;  or 
if  not  between  the  kingdoms,  at  least  between  confederacies  of 
masters.  But  whatever  fugitive  slave  laws  might  be  passed, 
or  compacts  entered  into,  they  were  all  as  so  many  condemned 
statutes,  judged  and  condemned  beforehand  by  the  law  of 
God,  and  to  be  held  null  and  void  by  those  who  would  keep 
his  commandments.  Nevertheless,  with  the  example  once  set, 
first  in  one  kin s^dom  then  in  the  other,  of  such  unrighteous  stat- 

o  *  o 

utes,  it  might  become  comparatively  easy,  through  powerful 
interests.,  by  the  combination  of  large  holders,  or  of  those  who 
could  profitably  become  slave-masters  by  trading  with  the 


ENACTMENTS   AGAINST  THE   DIVINE   LAW.  257 

heathen,  not  only  to  evade  the  divine  law,  but  at  length  to  get 
statutes  passed,  though  manifestly  and  directly  contrary  to  it, 
for  the  protection  of  slave  property,  or  to  assist  in  retaining  or 
recovering  such  property.  There  might  be  enactments  for 
the  interests  of  the  masters,  s  tting  at  naught  all  the  pro- 
visions of  the  divine  law  for  the  limitation  of  servitude,  the 
preventing  of  slavery,  and  the  protection  and  emancipation  of 
indentured  servants. 

That  some  such  form  of  oppression  began  to  be  prevalent 
soon  after  the  separation  of  the  kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel, 
the  tenor  of  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms,  from  Joel  to  Mala- 
chi,  leads  us  to  suppose.  It  is  probable  that  this  legislation 
for  the  masters,  this  care  for  their  interests  and  their  favor, 
this  oppression  of  those  whom  they  held  in  bondage,  and  this 
disregard  of  the  divine  law  in  their  behalf,  are  referred  to  by 
the  prophet  Amos,  especially  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  his 
prophecy,  where  God  rebukes  the  princes,  the  rulers,  and  the 
wealthy  and  great  men,  for  oppressing  the  poor  and  crushing 
the  needy,  but  saying  to  their  masters,  Bring  business  and 
wealth,  and  let  us  trade  and  drink  together,  Amos,  iv.  1. 
Compare  also  Amos,  ii.  6  :  "They  sold  the  righteous  for  silver, 
and  the  poor  for  a  pair  of  shoes."  Scott's  note  on  the  first  of 
these  passages  presents  the  case  in  a  manner  not  improbable : 
"  They  crushed  and  trampled  on  their  unresisting  brethren, 
and  sold  them  for  slaves.  Having  made  the  iniquitous  bar- 
gain, perhaps,  on  low  terms,  they  required  from  the  purchaser 
in  this  slave-trade  to  be  treated  with  wine."  It  may  have  been 
partly  in  reference  to  such  sins  as  these,  that  the  rebuke  of 
God  by  the  prophet  Micah  was  directed,  that  "  the  statutes  of 
Omri  were  kept,  and  all  the  counsels  of  the  house  of  Ahab," 
Micah,  vi.  16.  For,  immediately  after  that  indictment,  it  is 
asserted  that  "  men  are  hunting,  every  man  his  brother,  with  a 
net ;  and  the  prince  asketh,  and  the  judge  asketh,  for  a  re- 
ward, and  the  great  man  uttereth  his  mischievous  desire ;  and 
so  they  wrap  it  up,  the  best  of  them  being  as  a  briar,  and 


258  GLARING   GUILT   OF    OPPRESSION. 

the  most  upright  sharper  than  a  thorn-hedge,"  Micah,  vii. 
2,  3,  4. 

It  was  in  reference  to  such  iniquity,  this  great  and  glaring 
guilt  of  oppression  especially,  that  many  passages  in  the 
Prophets  and  the  Psalms  were  written.  "  Woe  unto  them 
that  decree  unrighteous  decrees,  and  that  write  grievousness 
which  they  have  prescribed,  to  turn  aside  the  needy  from 
judgment,  and  to  take  away  the  right  from  the  poor  of  my 
people,"  Isaiah,  x.  10.  "He  looked  for  judgment,  but  behold 
oppression,"  Isaiah,  v.  7.  "  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  ye 
rulers  of  Sodom  ;  give  ear  unto  the  law  of  our  God,  ye  people 
of  Gomorrah.  Your  hands  are  full  of  blood.  When  ye  make 
many  prayers,  I  will  not  hear.  Put  away  the  evil  of  your  do- 
ings. Seek  judgment;  relieve  the  oppressed,"  Isaiah,  i.  10- 
17.  "Woe  unto  them  which  justify  the  wicked  for  reward, 
and  take  away  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  from  him. 
Therefore  as  the  fire  devoureth  the  stubble,  and  the  flame 
consumeth  the  chaff,  so  their  root  shall  be  as  rottenness,  and 
their  blossom  shall  go  up  as  dust,  because  they  have  cast 
away  the  law  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  and  despised  the  word  of 
the  Holy  one  of  Israel,"  Isaiah,  v.  23, 24.  Compare  Jeremiah, 
vi.  6,  and  vii.  5,  6,  and  xxii.  17. 

THE    GREAT   ILLUSTRATIVE    EECOED    IN   JEREMIAH. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  such  historic  references,  showing  to 
what  a  degree  the  Jews  had  corrupted  justice,  and  set  up  op- 
pression, in  a  system  of  precedent  and  law,  in  contempt  of 
the  divine  law,  that  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  great 
illustrative  record  in  Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  The  progress  of  the 
iniquity  and  the  ruin  therein  recorded  had  been  gradual,  from 
father  to  son,  from  generation  to  generation,  Jeremiah,  xxxiv. 
14 ;  but  at  length  it  arose  to  the  crisis  of  an  open,  combined, 
and  positive  rebellion  against  God,  in  entirely  trampling  under 
foot  the  great  ordinance  against  Hebrew  slavery,  contained  in 
Exodus,  xxi.  2,  and  confirmed  and  guarded  by  other  statutes. 


TERRIBLE   RECORD   IN   JEREMIAH.  259 

The  crime  of  injustice  and  rebellion  was  the  more  marked  and 
daring,  because  it  had  been  preceded  by  a  fitful  penitence  and 
acknowledgment  of  the  oppression,  and  acceptance  of  the  law 
as  righteous,  and  a  return  to  its  observance,  with  a  new  cove- 
nant to  that  effect.  So  the  whole  people,  princes  and  people, 
loosed  their  grasp  upon  the  servants  they  had  been  unjustly 
retaining  in  bondage,  and  for  a  season,  at  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  let  them  go.  But,  on  reflection,  they  felt  that  it  was 
too  great  a  sacrifice  of  power,  and  relinquishment  of  property, 
to  which  they  would  not  submit.  "  So  they  turned,  and 
caused  the  servants  and  the  handmaids,  whom  they  had  let  go 
free,  to  return,  and  brought  them  into  subjection  for  servants 
and  for  handmaids,"  Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  11.  Then  came  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  and  its  execution  followed,  as  the  lightning 
doth  the  thunder:  "  Because  ye  have  not  hearkened  unto  me, 
in  proclaiming  liberty,  every  one  to  his  brother,  and  every  one 
to  his  neighbor,  behold  I  proclaim  a  liberty  for  you,  saith  the 
Lord,  to  the  sword,  to  the  pestilence,  and  to  the  famine ;  and 
I  will  make  you  to  be  removed  into  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth,"  Jeremiah,  xxxiv.  17. 

It  throws  a  solemn  light  of  additional  warning  upon  this 
transaction,  to  compare  with  this  chapter  of  Jeremiah,  the 
cotemporary  prophecy  of  Ezekiel,  in  the  twenty-second  chap- 
ter of  that  prophet.  As  men  gather  silver,  brass,  iron,  lead, 
and  tin,  into  the  midst  of  the  furnace,  to  blow  the  fire  upon 
it,  to  melt  it,  so  God  informed  Ezekiel  that  he  was  now  gath- 
ering the  whole  house  of  Israel,  that  had  become  dross,  priests, 
princes,  prophets,  and  people  in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  to 
pour  out  his  fury  upon  them,  and  melt  them  as  refuse  metals 
in  the  midst  of  the  fire.  The  indictment  of  their  wickedness 
in  this  chapter,  issued  just  three  years  before  the  prediction 
of  Jeremiah,  in  the  thirty-fourth  of  his  prophecy,  closes  with 
these  words:  "  The  people  of  the  land  have  used  oppression, 
and  exercised  robbery,  and  have  vexed  the  poor  and  needy  / 
yea,  they  have  oppressed  the  stranger  wrongfully.  And  I 


260  LESSON    OF   GOD  S   VENGEANCE. 

sought  for  a  man  among  them  that  should  make  up  the  hedge, 
and  stand  in  the  gap  before  me  for  the  land,  that  I  should  not 
destroy  it,  but  I  found  none.  Therefore  have  I  poured  out 
mine  indignation  upon  them  ;  I  have  consumed  them  with  the 
fire  of  my  wrath ;  their  own  way  have  I  recompensed  upon 
their  heads,  said  the  Lord  God." 

Almost  at  the  same  moment,  and  in  view  of  the  same  pre- 
dicted event,  though  residing  at  so  wide  a  distance  from  each 
other,  these  two  prophets  were  charged  with  God's  denunci- 
ation against  the  same  sin  of  oppression,  as  the  one  climac- 
teric occasion  and  cause  of  the  destruction  of  the  nation.  God 
refers  the  people  back  to  the  first  covenant  of  freedom  in  Ex- 
odus, xxii.,  abolishing  and  forbidding  slavery  for  ever ;  and 
the  violation  of  that  covenant,  in  the  attempt  to  establish 
the  forbidden  sin,  is  distinctly  and  with  sublime  and  awful 
emphasis,  marked  by  Jehovah  in  his  one,  final,  conclusive  rea- 
son for  giving  over  the  nation  into  the  hand  of  their  enemies, 
and  sweeping  the  whole  community  into  bondage.  It  would 
not  be  possible  to  transmit,  in  historic  form,  a  more  tremen- 
dous reprobation  of  the  sin  of  slavery,  and  of  slavery  as  a  sin. 
From  Ezekiel,  xxii.,  and  Jeremiah,  xxxiv.,  this  lesson  stands 
out  as  the  one  grand  lesson  of  God's  vengeance  in  the  cap- 
tivity. 

TESTIMONY   OF   COTEMPORARY  PROPHETS. 

MICHAELTS,  on  this  historic  passage,  supposes  that  for  some 
considerable  time  this  oppression,  this  violation  of  God's  cov- 
enant in  depriving  the  servants  of  their  freedom,  had  been 
going  on;  but  that  king  Zedekiah,  terrified  by  Jeremiah's 
preaching,  and  by  the  armies  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  had  agreed 
with  the  princes  and  people  to  repent  of  this  their  wickedness, 
and  had  accordingly,  for  a  little  season,  set  their  servants  free, 
as  God  had  commanded.  But  then,  reflecting  on  the  profit- 
ableness of  such  property,  and  the  vastness  of  the  sacrifice  of 
power  and  gain  in  relinquishing  it,  they  concluded  that  they 


TESTIMONY   OF  THE   PROPHETS.  261 

would  not  do  it,  and  accordingly  reenslaved  their  servants  as 
their  property  for  ever.  For  this  renewed  crime,  against  which 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  other  prophets  had  been  thundering 
the  word  of  the  Lord,  God's  wrath  arose  without  remedy,  and 
he  swept  the  whole  race  away. 

"With  this  view  of  the  case,  the  prophets  all  agree,  and  many 
passages  become  plainer  in  the  light  of  the  closing  develop- 
ment of  the  great  tragedy.  For  example,  Jeremiah,  v.  26-31, 
manifestly  refers  to  the  progress  of  this  iniquity :  "  For  among 
my  people  are  found  wicked  men ;  they  lay  wait  as  he  that 
setteth  snares  ;  they  set  a  trap,  they  catch  men.  They  judge 
not  the  cause  of  the  fatherless  nor  the  right  of  the  needy.  The 
prophets  prophesy  falsely,  and  the  priests  bear  rule  by  their 
means."  Also,  Jeremiah,  vi.  6 :  "  The  city  is  wholly  oppres- 
sion in  the  midst  of  her  ;  cast  a  mound  against  Jerusalem,  the 
city  to  be  visited."  Also,  Jeremiah,  vii.  4-17 :  "If  ye  oppress 
not  the  stranger,  the  fatherless  and  the  widow,  then  may  ye 
dwell  in  the  land ;  but  otherwise,  I  will  cast  you  out  of  my 
sight."  Also,  xxi.  12:  "Execute  judgment  in  the  morning, 
and  deliver  the  spoiled  out  of  the  hand  of  the  oppressor,  let 
my  fury  go  out  like  fire  and  burn  that  none  can  quench  it,  be- 
cause of  the  evil  of  your  doings."  Also,  xxii.  3-13-17 :  "  Ex- 
ecute ye  judgment  and  righteousness,  and  deliver  the  spoiled 
out  of  the  hand  of  the  oppressor ;  and  do  no  wrong,  do  no 
violence  to  the  stranger.  Woe  unto  him  that  buildeth  his 
house  by  unrighteousness,  and  his  chambers  by  wrong ;  that 
useth  his  neighbor's  service  without  wages,  and  giveth  him 
not  for  his  work.  Did  not  thy  father  do  judgment  and  justice, 
and  then  it  was  well  with  him?  He  judged  the  cause  of  the 
poor  and  needy  ;  then  it  was  well  with  him  ;  was  not  this  to 
know  me,  saith  the  Lord  ?  But  thine  eyes  and  thy  heart  are 
not  but  for  thy  covetousness,  and  for  oppression  and  violence. 
Therefore  are  they  cast  out  into  a  land  which  they  know  not." 
The  particular  sin,  and  the  particular  punishment,  oppres- 
sion and  the  retribution,  are  here  developed. 


262  TESTiM02nr  OF  THE  PROPHETS. 

On  a  comparison  of  Ezekiel,  xviii.  and  xxii.  the  same  great 
facts  are  manifest.  One  of  the  characteristics  of  a  man  of  true 
piety,  a  just  man  before  God,  is  repeatedly  stated  as  being  the 
hatred  and  avoidance  of  oppression ;  "  hath  not  oppressed 
any,  hath  spoiled  none  by  violence,  hath  executed  true  judg- 
ment between  man  and  man."  But  on  the  other  hand,  the 
characteristics  of  a  wicked  man,  and  the  sure  conditions  of 
God's  wrath,  are,  "  if  he  have  oppressed  the  poor  and  needy, 
spoiled  his  brother,  cruelly  oppressed  any."  In  the  twenty- 
second  chapter,  the  princes  and  the  people  are  arraigned  as 
having  done  this,  among  other  wickedness:  "In  the  midst 
of  thee  have  they  dealt  by  oppression  with  the  stranger ;  in 
thee  have  they  vexed  the  fatherless  and  widow ;  in  thee  have 
they  set  light  by  father  and  mother ;  in  thee  are  men  that 
have  carried  tales  and  taken  gifts  to  shed  blood,  and  thou 
hast  greedily  gained  by  extortion.  The  priests  have  violated 
my  law.  The  princes  are  like  wolves  ravening  the  prey,  to 
get  dishonest  gain.  And  her  prophets  have  daubed  them  with 
untempered  mortar,  divining  lies.  The  people  of  the  land 
have  used  oppression  and  exercised  robbery,  and  have  vexed 
the  poor  and  needy ;  yea,  they  have  oppressed  the  stranger 
wrongfully  :  therefore  have  I  consumed  them  with  the  fire  of 
my  wrath." 

On  a  comparison  with  other  cotemporary  prophets,  Zecha- 
riah,  Zephaniah,  Habakkuk,  and,  somewhat  later,  Malachi,  we 
meet  with  astonishing  illustrations ;  as,  for  example,  where  God 
reminds  Zechariah  of  his  former  commandment :  "  Execute  true 
judgment,  and  show  mercy  and  compassion  every  man  to  his 
brother ;  and  oppress  not  the  widow  nor  the  fatherless,  the 
stranger  nor  the  poor ;  and  let  none  of  you  imagine  evil 
against  your  brother  in  his  heart.  But  they  refused  to  hearken, 
and  made  their  hearts  as  adamant  against  the  law,  lest  they 
should  hear ;  therefore  came  a  great  wrath  from  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  and  he  scattered  them  with  a  whirlwind  among  the  na- 
tions," Zechariah,  vii.  7-14. 


SLAVE   JUDGES   EVEITCNG   WOLVES.  263 

The  testimony  of  Zephaniah  is  to  the  same  point :  "  Woe 
to  the  oppressing  city !  Her  princes  within  her  are  roaring 
lions  ;  her  judges  are  evening  wolves ;  they  gnaw  not  the  bones 
till  the  morrow."  The  same  terrible  facts  of  oppression  and 
cruelty,  unjust  judgment,  violence,  and  compulsory  servitude 
without  wages,  are  disclosed  in  Habakkuk ;  the  violence  of  the 
land,  the  city,  and  all  that  dwell  therein. 

It  is  the  iniquity  of  oppression,  in  the  shape  of  unrequited 
and  unjustly  compelled  servitude,  the  oppression  of  the  stranger 
in  the  same  way ;  the  defrauding  him  of  his  rights,  the  per- 
version of  law  and  of  just  judgment  in  regard  to  him,  and  the 
trampling  upon  him  and  his  children  with  hereditary  cruelty, 
that  are  distinctly  described  as  having  brought  down  the 
wrath  of  God  without  remedy.  And  these  are  precisely  our 
sins  /  and  there  are  some  expressions  in  these  indictments 
and  catalogues  of  crime  fearfully  descriptive  of  the  state  of 
jurisprudence  and  of  social  manners  in  the  United  States.* 

*  For  example,   HER  JUDGES  ARE  slavery,  on  the  ground  of  pretended 

EVENING  WOLVES.   One  needs  only  to  service  due,  when  it  could  be  proved 

read   the  published  account   of  the  that  the  child  was  not  only  in  no  sense 

atrocious  injustice  and  cruelty  perpe-  a  fugitive,  but  had  never  been  a  slave  t 

tratcd  by  one  of  the  judges  of  Mary-  A  hyena  should  be  set  in  bronze  as 

land,  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  the  image  of  such  American  justice  ; 

against   a  mother  and  her  child,  re-  and  the  statue  of  an  evening  wolf 

manding  them  both  into  slavery,  re-  would   be  a  fitting  monument  for  a 

fusing  the  introduction  of  proof,  that  man  capable  of  a  decision  so  mean, 

even  if  the  mother  had  been  a  slave,  so  detestable,  so  superfluously  crusl 

the  child  was  not  a  runaway,  and  was  and  barbarous, 
freo  I      Condemning    them   both    to 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

RECAPITULATIONS  OF  STATUTES. — FOUR  FORMS  OF  STATUTE  LAW  RENDERING  SLAVERY 
IMPOSSIBLE.— CLIMAX  IN  THE  LAW  OF  JUBILEE. — UNIVERSALITY  OF  THIS  LAW  FOB 
ALL  THE  INHABITANTS  DEMONSTRATED. — LIBERTY  THROUGHOUT  THE  LAND. — IF  NOT 
FOR  ALL,  THEN  A  PREMIUM  ON  SLAVERY. — ANALOGY  OF  OTHER  STATUTES. — PROOF 
FROM  THE  PROPHETS. — LEADING  IDEA  IN  THE  LAW. 

WE  have  now  to  consider  the  institution  and  the  law  of  the 
jubilee,  as  the  completion  of  the  system  of  social  benevolence 
and  freedom  embodied  in  the  Mosaic  statutes. 

Meantime  we  have  before  us,  even  if  we  stopped  short  of 
that,  a  body  of  laws  embracing,  as  thus  far  traced,  beyond  all 
comparison,  the  most  benign,  protective,  and  generous  system 
of  domestic  servitude,  the  kindest  to  the  servants,  and  the 
fairest  for  the  masters,  ever  framed  in  any  country  or  in  any 
age.  The  rights  of  the  servants  are  defined  and  guaranteed 
as  strictly,  and  with  as  much  care,  as  those  of  the  employers 
or  masters.  Human  beings  could  not  be  degraded  into  slaves 
or  chattels,  or  bound  for  involuntary  service,  or  seized  and 
worked  for  profit,  and  no  wages  paid.  The  defenses  against 
these  outrages,  the  denouncement  and  prohibition  of  them, 
are  among  the  clearest  legal  and  historical  judgments  of  God 
against  slavery.  The  system  of  slavery  in  our  own  country, 
even  in  the  light  only  of  these  provisions,  holds  its  power  by 
laws  most  manifestly  conflicting  with  the  divine  law,  and 
stands  indisputably  under  the  divine  reprobation. 

FOUR   FORMS    OF   STATUTE  LAW  RENDERING    SLAVERY 
IMPOSSIBLE. 

Four  forms  of  statute  law  combined,  in  this  divinely-ordered 
social  arrangement,  to  render  slavery  for  ever  impossible  among 
a  people  regardful  of  justice  and  obedient  to  God.  First. 


FOUK   IMPOSSIBILITIES    OF   SLAVERY.  265 

The  law  of  religious  equality  and  dignity,  gathering  all  classes 
as  brethren  and  children  of  one  family  before  God.  Instruc- 
tion, recreation  and  test  were  secured  in  the  institution  of  the 
Sabbath,  and  its  cognate  sacred  seasons,  following  the  same 
law ;  and  freedom,  not  slavery,  was  inevitable. 

Second,  by  the  same  system,  the  original  act  of  oppression 
and  violence,  which  has  been  the  grand  and  almost  only  source 
of  all  the  slavery  in  our  own  country,  was  branded  and  placed 
in  the  catalogue  of  crime,  on  a  level  with  that  of  murder,  to 
be  punished  by  death.  It  requires  no  particular  acuteness  of 
vision  to  perceive  that  what  was  an  injustice  to  the  parents, 
worthy  of  death,  can  not  be  transformed,  in  the  next  genera- 
tion, or  the  next  after,  to  a  righteous  institution,  sacred  by 
the  grace  of  God.  By  covenant,  the  curse  of  the  Almighty 
is  upon  it. 

Third,  the  right  of  possession  to  himself,  is  recognized  as 
resting,  by  the  nature  of  humanity  and  the  authority  of  God's 
law,  in  each  individual ;  and  the  sacredness  of  the  human  per- 
sonality is  demonstrated  by  the  same  law  to  be  such,  that  a 
human  being  can  not,  but  by  the  highest  violence  and  crime, 
be  degraded  into  an  article  of  property  and  merchandise. 
From  the  Mosaic  statutes,  it  is  indisputable  that  such  is  the 
judgment  of  God  ;  and  the  successive  history,  which  takes  its 
course  and  coloring  from  them,  or  from  their  violation,  con- 
firms the  demonstration.  From  the  statutes  and  the  history 
together  it  is  as  clear  that  slavery  is  a  moral  abomination  in  the 
sight  of  God,  as  it  is  from  the  history  in  Genesis  that  the  in- 
iquity of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  was  a  sin.  The  destruction 
of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  for  the  iniquity  of  oppression,  in  this 
particular  form,  of  a  forced  involuntary  bondage,  was  a  more 
stupendous  and  enlightening  judgment  by  far,  all  things  con- 
sidered, than  the  overwhelming  of  the  cities  of  the  plain  with 
fire.  How  can  it  be  possible  for  any  unprejudiced  reader  of 
the  word  of  God  to  avoid  acknowledging  our  own  condemna- 
tion in  this  light  ? 


266  LAW  OF  JUBILEE  CONSIDERED. 

Fourth,  the  protection,  by  statute,  of  the  servant  escaping 
from  his  master,  instead  of  any  provision  for  the  master's  re- 
gaining possession  of  the  servant,  was  another  interposition  in 
behalf  of  the  weaker  party,  in  the  same  design  of  rendering 
slavery  impossible,  and  is  another  plain  indication  of  the  judg- 
ment of  God  as  to  the  iniquity  of  American  slavery,  and  of 
the  laws  for  the  support  of  it.  The  Hebrew  system  was  so 
absolute  and  effective  a  safeguard  against  oppression,  and  ren- 
dered any  form  of  slavery  so  impracticable,  and  in  its  legiti- 
mate working  would  have  so  inevitably  subdued  the  slavery 
of  all  surrounding  nations  to  its  own  freedom,  that  it  strfnds 
out  as  a  superhuman  production,  the  gift  of  God,  The  wis- 
dom and  benevolence  of  the  Almighty  appear  in  it  to  such  a 
degree,  in  comparison  and  contrast  with  the  habits  and  mor- 
als of  the  woi'ld,  that  the  claim  of  the  Pentateuch  to  a  divine 
inspiration  might,  in  no  small  measure,  be  permitted  to  rest 
upon  it. 

THE   LAW    OF   JUBILEE. UNIVERSALITY   OF   ITS    APPLICATION 

DEMONSTRATED. 

"We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  law  of  the  jubi- 
lee, in  Leviticus,  xxv.  10,  35-55.  This  great  statute  of  per- 
sonal freedom  was  as  follows:  "Ye  shall  hallow  the  fiftieth 
year,  and  proclaim  liberty  throughout  the  land  unto  all  the 
inhabitants  thereof:  it  shall  be  a  jubilee  unto  you,  and  ye  shall 
return  eveiy  man  unto  his  possession,  and  ye  shall  return  every 
man  unto  his  family."  LIBERTY  THROUGHOUT  THE  LAND  UNTO 
ALL  THE  INHABITANTS  THEREOF.  The  expression  is  chosen  on 
purpose  for  its  comprehensiveness.  It  is  not  said  to  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  land,  being  Hebrews,  or  such  as  are  He- 
brews, which  restriction  would  have  been  made,  had  it  been 
intended  ;  as  is  manifest  from  the  case  in  Jeremiah,  xxxiv., 
where  the  restriction  is  carefully  and  repeatedly  announced. 
But  the  phrase  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  seems  to  have 
an  intensity  of  meaning,  comprehending,  purposely,  all,  whether 


LIBERTY   THROUGHOUT  THE   LAND.  267 

Hebrews  or  not ;  it  being  well  known  that  many  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  land  were  not  Hebrews.  This  phrase,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  land,  had  been  frequently  used  to  describe 
its  old  heathen  possessors,  the  Canaanites,  and  others,  as  Ex 
odus,  xxiii.  31,  xxxiv.  12,  and  Numbers,  xxxii.  17,  xxxiii.  52.  It 
is  used,  Joshua,  ii.  9,  vii.  9,  ix.  24,  in  the  same  way.  It  is  never 
used  restrictively  for  Hebrews  alone  ;  not  an  instance  can  be 
found  of  such  usage  in  the  Mosaic  books.  It  is  used  in  Jeremiah, 

1.  14,  an  evil  on  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  and  in  Joel,  i. 

2,  and  ii.  1,  let  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  tremble.   In  this 
statute  in  Leviticus,  it  is  the  whole  number  of  inhabitants  of 
the  land,  held  in  servitude,  that  are  included.     Ye  people  of 
Israel  shall  do  this,  shall  proclaim  liberty  to  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  land. 

And  proclaim  liberty  throughout  the  land  to  all  the  inhabit- 
ants thereof.  The  Hebrew  is  as  follows :  y^Ns  "l'nv  e^N"j?h 
rrotfi-VaV,  and  preach  freedom  in  the  land  to  all  the  dwellers 
thereof.  The  expression  is  emphatic :  the  proclamation  to  be 
made  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  not  to 
those  only  who  inhabited  it  as  Hebrews  by  descent,  but  to  all 
that  dwelt  in  it.  Had  it  been  intended  to  restrict  the  appli- 
cation of  this  statute,  the  class  excluded  from  its  application 
would  have  been  named ;  another  form  of  expression  would 
have  been  used.  Had  it  been  intended  to  make  a  law  broad, 
universal,  exceptional  in  its  application,  no  other  phraseology 
could  be  used  than  that  which  is  used.  If  it  had  been  a  form 
of  class-legislation,  it  must  necessarily  have  been  so  worded 
as  to  admit  of  no  mistake.  But  the  expression  employed  is 
found,  without  exception,  in  all  cases,  with  an  unlimited,  uni- 
versal meaning.  It  is  never  used  where  a  particular  class  alone 
are  intended.  The  proof  of  its  usage,  and  the  demonstration 
from  its  usage  may  be  seen  by  examination  of  the  following 
passages. 

Isaiah,  xviii.  3:  All  ye  inhabitants  of  the  world,  and  dwellers 
on  the  earth.  V-N  •*:-«>  Van  •oc-'-Va .  Here  are  two  words 

"'•*»••;:  '         "  *  T 


268  LIBERTY   TO   ALL   INHABITANTS. 

used  as  synonymous.  The  first  is  the  word  employed  in  the 
law  under  consideration,  from  the  verb  aei,  with  the  meaning 
to  continue,  to  dwell,  to  inhabit  ;  and  this  is  the  word  ordi- 
narily employed  to  designated  the  whole  people  inhabiting  a 
country.  The  second  is  from  the  verb  •£»,  to  encamp,  to  rest, 
to  dwell,  employed  much  less  frequently,  as  in  Job,  xxvi.  5, 
the  waters  and  the  inhabitants  thereof,  t)nr:±>>  tr».  Also, 
Proverbs,  i.  33  ;  viii.  12;  x.  30.  Psalm  xxxvii.  29;  cii.  28. 
In  Isaiah,  xxxii.  16  ;  xxxiii.  24,  and  in  Joel,  iii.  20,  and  some 
other  places,  as  in  Psalm  Ixix.  35,  both  these  verbs  are  used 
interchangably.  But  the  verb  -jsip  is  used  exclusively  in  a 
number  of  passages  which  speak  of  God  as  dwelling  among 
his  people,  or  in  his  temple.  And  hence  the  use  of  the  word 
Shechinah,  n^stc,  the  tabernacle  of  God's  presence.  In  Isaiah, 
xxxiii.  24,  we  have  the  noun  -jty  for  -inhabitant,  and  the  verb 
api  for  the  people  that  dwell.  But  the  noun  f:v  is  very  seldom 
used,  while  the  participle  from  asj  is  employed  in  more  than 
seventy  passages  to  signify  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  or  of 
the  world,  without  any  restriction.  For  example  : 

Leviticus,  xviii.  25  :  The  land  vomiteth  out  her  inhabitants, 
rr2»i. 

Judges,  ii.  2  :  Make  no  league  with  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land,  yinn  ^fr\>. 

i   :•  T  T       ••   :     : 

Psalm  xxxiii.  8  :  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  world,  Jor\  ISBI—  Vs. 
Psalm  xxxiii.  14:  All  the   inhabitants  of  the  earth,  y~t<n 


Isaiah,  xxiv.  1,  5,  6,  17  :  Inhabitants  of  the  earth  ;  also,  xxvi. 
9,  inhabitants  of  the  world,  Vsn  •<s«t». 

Jeremiah,  xxv.  29,  30  :  Inhabitants  of  the  earth,  and  Lam- 
entations, iv.  12,  of  the  world. 

Joel,  ii.  1  :  Let  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  tremble, 
y-sn  issr—  Vs. 

I    '.•  T  T          "1  T 

And  so  in  multiplied  instances.  There  is  no  case  to  be 
found  in  which  this  expression  signifies  only  a  portion  of  the 
inhabitants,  or  a  particular  class.  Of  the  two  words  to  which 


NO   EXCEPTION   WHATEVER.  269 

we  have  referred,  the  form  -jse;  would  most  probably  have 
been  employed,  if  only  a  portion  of  the  inhabitants,  and  not 
all  classes  had  been  intended.  There  would  be  just  as  good 
reason  to  restrict  the  denunciation  in  Joel,  ii.  1,  or  i.  2 :  Give  ear 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  to  a  particular  and  limited 
class,  as  to  restrict  the  expression  in  which  the  law  of  jubilee 
is  framed. 

IF   ANY   EXCEPTION,    IT   MUST   HAVE   BEEN   STATED. 

Indeed,  according  to  the  universal  reason  of  language,  and 
especially  according  to  the  necessity  of  precise  and  accurate 
phraseology  in  the  framing  of  laws,  had  the  blessings  and 
privileges  of  the  jubilee  been  intended  only  for  native-born 
Hebrews,  or  guaranteed  only  to  such,  the  expression  univer- 
sally employed  on  other  occasions  when  that  particular  por- 
tion of  the  inhabitants  alone  are  concerned,  would  have  been 
employed  on  this.  There  being  such  a  well-known  phrase, 
capable  of  no  misunderstanding,  the  law  would  have  been 
conveyed  by  it.  The  phrase  must  have  been  the  common  one, 
of  which  one  of  the  earliest  examples  is  in  Exodus,  xii.  19^ 
rrTso  Vsn'sn  rrs :  The  congregation  of  Israel  born  in  the  land. 
In  Exodus,  xii.  48,  the  distinctive  expression,  to  particularize 
the  native  Hebrew,  is  used  along  with  y*N,  thus,  y-isjrj  h^rs  the 
born  in  the  land,  the  native  of  the  land  of  Hebrew  birth  or 
origin. 

Whenever  there  was  danger  of  misinterpretation,  misap- 
plication, or  confusion,  as  to  the  class  intended  by  a  law,  this 
phrase  was  employed,  and  the  distinction,  whatever  it  was, 
which  the  law  intended,  was  made  plain  ;  or,  if  there  was  dan- 
ger of  making  a  distinction  where  none  ought  to  be  made, 
that  was  equally  plain.  For  example,  Leviticus,  xvi.  29,  the 
fast  and  Sabbath  of  the  day  of  atonement  being  appointed,  its 
observance  is  made  obligatory  on  the  stranger  as  well  as  the 
native  Hebrew,  by  the  following  words:  QS5lna  -i?.n  -UM  n~|Nn: 
Both  the  native  born  and  the  stranger  that  sojourneth  among 


ALL  INHABITANTS    OF   THE   LAND. 

you.  So  in  Leviticus,  xviii.  26 :  "  Ye  shall  not  commit  any  of 
these  abominations,  neither  any  of  your  own  nation,  nor  any 
stranger,"  i$m  hnt^fj.  Again,  Leviticus,  xix.  34 :  As  one  born 
among  you  shall  the  stranger  be  that  dwelleth  with  you, 
•wn  er^  rnn1'  tas»  ft^n  '•>  a°d  it  is  added,  Thou  shalt  love  him 
as  thyself,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt.  Again, 
Leviticus,  xxiv.  16 :  He  that  blasphemeth  the  name  of  the 
Lord,  as  well  the  stranger  as  he  that  is  born  in  the  land, 
hitNS  iss.  And  Leviticus,  xxiv.  22:  Ye  shall  have  one  man- 
ner of  law,  as  well  for  the  stranger  as  for  one  of  your  own 
country,  II^NS  IAS. 

So  in  regard  to  the  passover,  Numbers,  ix.  14 :  Ye  shall 
have  one  ordinance,  both  for  the  stranger  and  for  him  that 
was  born  in  the  land,  y:^  ht*f »V*  ">aV%  The  same  in  regard  to 
atonement  for  sins  of  ignorance,  and  punishment  for  sins  of 
presumption,  Numbers,  xv.  29,  30,  two  instances  of  the  same 
expression,  employed  where  there  was  any  danger  of  a  misap- 
plication or  insufficient  application  of  the  law.  In  the  first  in- 
stance, the  expression,  Him  that  is  born  among  the  children 
of  Israel,  VN~'CI  i;aa  fi^tNrt,  is  set  over  against  the  stranger 
that  sojourneth  among  them.  In  the  second  instance,  the 
comparison  is  more  concise :  Whether  the  born  in  the  land  or 
the  stranger,  ">Ar;— pssi  rntNn— )».  Joshua,  viii.  33,  affords  a 
striking  example,  where,  to  prevent  the  expression  all  Israel 
from  being  restricted  so  as  to  exclude  the  stranger,  it  is 
added,  As  well  the  stranger  as  he  that  was  born  among  them, 
h^N3  ias.  The  expression  all  Israel  not  being  necessarily  so 
universal  as  the  expression  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  its 
enlarged  meaning  is  defined ;  and  just  so  if  the  expression,  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  had  been  used  in  any  case  where 
not  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  but  only  all  the  native  Is- 
raelites were  meant,  the  restrictive  meaning  must  have  been 
defined ;  otherwise,  it  would  inevitably  include  both  the  na- 
tive and  the  stranger,  both  the  h-^  and  the  na . 

This  word  J-ny*t,  used  to  designate  the  native  Hebrew  in 


NONE  TO    BE    RETAINED   IN   SERVITUDE.  271 

distinction  from  the  stranger  or  any  foreigner,  is  a  very  strik- 
ing one,  from  the  verb  rnt,  to  rise,  to  grow,  or  sprout  forth, 
as  a  tree  growing  out  of  its  own  soil.  It  is  used  in  Psalm 
xxxvii.  35,  to  signify  a  tree  in  full  verdure  and  freshness ;  in 
the  common  version,  a  green  bay-tree,  -\\$^  ftntK.  ^  ls  thus  a 
very  idiomatic  and  beautiful  word  for  particularizing  the  Israel- 
ite of  home  descent,  the  child  of  Abraham.  There  can  not  be 
a  doubt  that  this  expression  must  have  been  used  in  framing 
the  law  of  jubilee,  had  it  been  intended  to  restrict  its  privi- 
leges as  belonging  not  to  the  stranger,  but  to  the  home-born. 

IF   NOT   FOR   ALL,   THEN   A   PREMIUM    ON   SLAVERY. 

Moreover,  it  is  obvious  that,  if  this  comprehensive  and  ad- 
mirable law  meant  that  only  Hebrew  servants  were  to  be  set 
free,  but  that  others  might  be  retained  in  servitude  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  masters,  or,  in  other  words,  might  be  made 
slaves,  the  law  would  have  acted  as  a  direct  premium  upon 
slavery,  offering  a  very  strong  inducement  to  have  none  but 
such  servants  as  could  be  kept  as  long  as  any  one  chose,  such 
as  were  absolutely  and  for  ever  in  the  power  of  the  master. 
So  far  from  being  a  benevolent  law,  it  would  thus  become  a 
very  cruel  and  oppressive  law,  the  source  of  infinite  mischief 
and  misery.  If  the  choice  had  been  offered  to  the  Hebrews, 
by  law,  between  servants  whom  they  could  compel  to  remain 
with  them  as  slaves,  and  servants  whom  they  would  have  to 
dismiss,  at  whatever  inconvenience,  every  sixth  year,  and  also 
at  the  jubilee,  it  would  have  been  neither  in  Jewish  nor  in 
human  nature,  to  have  refused  the  bribe  that  would  thus  have 
been  held  out  in  the  law  itself  for  the  establishment  of  slavery. 
Even  in  regard  to  Hebrew  apprentices,  it  was  so  much  more 
profitable  to  contract  with  them  for  the  legal  six  years'  serv- 
ice, than  to  hire  by  the  day,  or  month,  or  year,  that  we  are 
informed,  Deuteronomy,  xv.  18,  that  the  15?,  the  servant  of 
six  years'  apprenticeship,  was  worth  double  the  price  of  the 
T»SW,  the  hired  servant.  This  difference  at  length  came  to  be 


272  ANALOGY    OF    OTHER    STATUTES. 

felt  so  strongly,  and  operated  with  such  intensity  upon  the 
growing  greed  of  power  and  gain,  that  the  Jewish  masters 
attempted  a  radical  revolution  in  the-  law.  And  what  they 
would  have  done,  had  the  law  allowed,  is  proved  by  what  they 
did  attempt  to  do  against  the  law,  when  they  forced  even 
Hebrew  servants  to  remain  with  them  as  slaves;  and  be- 
cause of  this  glaring  iniquity  and  oppression,  in  defiance  of 
the  statute  ordaining  freedom  for  ever,  they  were  given  over 
of  God  to  the  sword,  the  famine,  and  the  pestilence.  The  in- 
tention and  attempt  to  establish  slavery  in  the  land  constituted 
the  crime  for  which,  and  the  occasion  on  which,  God's  wrath 
became  inexorable.  There  is  no  possibility  of  a  mistake  here. 
God's  indictment  was  absolute,  and  we  have  already  examined 
and  compared  the  passages. 

The  motive  for  this  crime  was  profit  and  power ;  and  now 
it  is  clearly  demonstrable  that,  if  the  people  of  Judea  had  had 
a  race  of  human  beings  at  their  disposal,  whom,  by  their  own 
law,  they  could  possess  and  use  as  slaves,  chattels,  property  ; 
and  if  the  law  had  marked  off  such  a  race  for  that  purpose, 
and  established  such  an  element  of  superiority  and  of  despot- 
ism in  the  native  Hebrew  nation,  over  such  a  race,  consecrat- 
ed for  their  profit  to  such  slavery — it  is  demonstrable  that  the 
Hebrews  would  not  have  degraded  any  of  their  own  to  such  a 
state.  It  would  have  been  quite  a  needless  wickedness  to  set 
up  slavery  as  a  crime,  if  they  had  it  already  legalized  as  a 
necessary  virtue.  Their  attempt  to  make  slaves  of  the  He- 
brews, is  a  demonstration  that  they  were  not  permitted,  by 
law,  to  make  slaves  of  the  heathen. 

ANALOGY    OF    OTHER   STATUTES. 

The  analogy  of  other  statutes  is  in  favor  of  this  interpreta- 
tion, nay,  requires  it.  This  statute  is  a  statute  of  liberty  going 
seven-fold  beyond  any  other  ;  intended  to  be  as  extraordinary 
in  its  jubilee  of  privileges,  as  a  half  century  is  extraordinary 
above  a  period  of  seven  years.  But  already,  by  the  force  of 


A   SEVENFOLD   JUBILEE.  273 

other  statutes,  a  septennial  jubilee  was  assured  to  the  He- 
brews ;  the  law  would  never  permit  a  Hebrew  to  be  held  as 
an  apprenticed  servant  more  than  six  years ;  in  the  seventh 
he  should  go  free.  Every  seventh  year  was  already  a  year  &f 
release  to  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  so  that  the  fif- 
tieth year,  if  that  jubilee  was  restricted  to  the  Hebrews, 
would  have  been  little  more  to  them  than  the  ordinary  recur- 
rence of  the  septennial  jubilee.  What  need  or  reason  for  sig- 
nalizing it,  if  it  brought  no  greater  joy,  no  greater  gift  of 
freedom,  than  every  seventh  year  of  release  must  necessarily 
bring?  But  it  was  a  jubilee  of  seven-fold  greater  comprehen- 
siveness and  blessing  than  all  the  rest ;  and  whereas  the  others 
were  not  designated  or  bestowed  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land,  this  was  /  and  in  this  circumstance  lay  its  emphasis  and 
largeness  of  importance  and  of  joy. 

This  constituted  its  especial  fitness  as  a  prefiguration  of  the 
comprehensiveness  and  unconditional  fullness  of  our  deliver- 
ance and  redemption  by  the  gift  of  God's  grace  in  Christ  Je- 
sus. It  was  a  jubilee,  not  for  those  favored  classes  only,  who 
already  had  seven  such  jubilees  secured  to  them  bylaw  during 
every  fifty  years,  but  for  those  also,  who,  otherwise,  had  no 
such  gift  bestowed  upon  them,  and  could  look  forward  to  no 
such  termination  of  their  servitude.  It  was  a  jubilee  of  per- 
sonal deliverance  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  Hebrews 
or  strangers,  whatever  might  have  been  the  tenure  of  their 
service.  The  servants  apprenticed  or  hired,  were  all  free  to 
seek  new  masters,  or  to  make  new  engagements,  or  none  at 
all,  according  to  their  pleasure.  The  Hebrew  land-owners 
were  to  return  to  the  possessions  of  their  fathers,  "every  man 
unto  his  possession,  every  man  unto  his  family,"  Leviticus,  xxv. 
10.  But  no  man  could  carry  his  apprenticed  servants,  his 
tr-ss;,  with  him,  or  his  hired  servants,  except  on  a  new  volun- 
tary contract ;  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  were  free. 

The  clause  preceding  this  statute  is  an  enactment  concern- 
ing every  seventh  year,  to  be  observed  as  a  Sabbath  of  rest 


274  PROCLAMATION    OF   LIBERTT. 

for  the  land,  but  not  necessarily  of  release  for  the  servants ; 
consequently,  provision  is  made  in  the  promise  of  sustenance 
through  that  year,  "  for  thee,  and  for  thy  servant,  tf~ay\?,  and 
for  thy  maid,  tjrjttNV^,  and  for  thy  hired  servant,  tf^stV*.,"  all 
of  each  class,  being  supposed  still  with  the  family.  But  when 
the  enactment  of  the  fiftieth  year  as  a  year  of  rest  is  an- 
nounced, it  being  announced  as  a  year  of  liberty  for  all  the  in- 
habitants of  the  land,  nothing  is  again  said  of  the  servants  of 
the  family;  neither  in  regulations  as  to  buying  and  selling, 
with  reference  to  the  proximity  of  the  jubilee,  is  there  any  ex- 
ception made  in  regard  to  servants,  as  though  they  were  not 
included  in  the  freedom  of  the  jubilee.  But  in  regard  to  some 
things  there  are  such  exceptions  stated,  as  in  Leviticus,  xv. 
30,  of  a  house  in  a  walled  city,  and  verse  34,  of  the  field  of 
the  Levites ;  showing  that,  if  any  exception  had  been  intend- 
ed in  regard  to  servants,  it  must  have  been  named. 

PROCLAMATION   OF   LIBERTY. — PROOF   FROM   THE   PROPHETS. 

We  come,  next,  to  consider  the  phrase  vi-  eriN1^,  proclaim 
liberty,  announce  deliverance.  The  strongest  corresponding 
passage  is  Isaiah,  Ixi.  1,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives, 
and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound  ;  to 
proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.  In  this  passage,  it 
is  called  v^-— ns»,  the  year  of  acceptance,  or  of  benefits,  or,  as 
it  might  be  rendered,  of  discharge.  In  Ezekiel,  xlvi.  17,  it  is 
called  by  the  word  with  which  the  law  is  framed  in  Leviticus, 
iv.irn  n:»,  the  year  of  liberty.  And  the  passage  in  Ezekiel  is 
emphatic  in  more  respects  than  one.  1.  It  is  a  recognition 
of  the  year  of  jubilee  at  a  late  period  in  the  history  of  the  He- 
brews ;  it  is  also  a  notice  of  a  prince  giving  an  inheritance  to 
one  of  his  servants,  i"1"^?*?  i^sX.  who  might  be,  not  a  Hebrew; 
but  in  the  year  of  liberty,  the  servants  were  free,  and  the  in 
heritance  returned  to  the  original  owner,  or  to  one  of  his 
eons.  2.  It  is  an  incidental  argument  against  the  existence 
of  slavery,  when  we  find  the  servants  made  co-heirs  with  the 


•     THE   TEAR    OF    DELIVERANCE.  275 

eons.  It  can  not  be  slaves  who  would  be  so  treated.  3.  Eze- 
kiel's  designation  of  the  year  of  liberty  corresponds  with  that 
of  Isaiah,  at  a  period  more  than  a  hundred  years  earlier.  The 
allusion,  in  both  prophets,  to  the  jubilee,  is  unquestionable*; 
and,  in  both,  the  grand  designation  of  the  year  is  that  of  a 
period  of  universal  freedom.  In  Isaiah  it  is  deliverance  to  cap- 
tives and  prisoners,  si-nexV;  I'l")*  to;*21^.  Those  that  are 
bound,  includes  those  under  any  servile  apprenticeship ;  but  if 
any  one  should  contend  that  it  means  slaves,  then  it  is  very 
clear  that  the  jubilee  was  a  year  of  deliverance  to  such,  and 
therefore  certainly  applied  to  the  heathen,  inasmuch  as  among 
the  Hebrews  there  were  no  slaves,  and  by  law  could  be  none. 
But  if  it  was  a  year  of  freedom  for  heathen  slaves,  admitting 
they  could  be  called  such,  then  it  was  the  complete  extinction 
of  slavery ;  it  was  such  a  periodical  emancipation  as  abolished 
slavery  utterly  and  entirely,  and  rendered  its  establishment  in 
the  land  impossible. 

Here  we  see  the  inconsistency  of  lexicographers  and  com- 
mentators between  their  own  conclusions,  when  they  assume 
that  the  jubilee  was  a  year  of  deliverance  to  slaves,  and  at  the 
same  time  restrict  its  emancipating  operation  to  the  Hebrews. 
For  example,  under  the  word  I'.ni,  we  read  in  Gesenius  the 
definition  of  the  year  of  liberty,  I'm-*  n:»,  as  "  the  year  of  de- 
liverance to  SLAVES,  namely,  the  year  of  jubilee."  This  is 
either  assuming  the  Hebrews  to  be  slaves,  contrary  to  the 
well-known  law  which  made  this  impossible,  or,  of  necessity,  it 
assumes  and  asserts  the  application  of  the  law  of  jubilee  to 
other  classes,  namely,  of  strangers  and  of  the  heathen  ;  and 
interprets  that  law  (as,  beyond  all  question,  its  phraseology 
demands)  as  applying  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land.  The 
Septuagint  version  of  the  proclamation  is,  a<peaiv  inl  rijg  yrjc. 
Tract  rolg  Karoiicovaiv  avTTjv,  deliverance  to  all  the  inhabitants  ; 
and  the  Septuagint  version  of  Ezekiel,  xlvi.  17,  is,  erovg  rfjc. 
dQeoeug,  the  year  of  discharge  or  deliverance;  and  the  He- 
brew for  the  year  of  jubilee,  Vs'-'n  n:ip,  is  translated,  in  the 


276  THE   TEAR   OF   LETTING   GO. 

same  version,  by  erog  rrjc.  d<J>Eoeu$  and  tviavrbc,  d^easug,  the 
year  of  freeing,  of  discharging,  of  letting  go. 

It  is  of  little  consequence  whether  the  Hebrew  appellation 
was  adopted  from  the  instrument,  the  species  of  trumpet,  used 
in  making  the  proclamation  of  the  jubilee,  or  from  the  mean- 
ing of  the  root-word,  from  which  the  name  of  that  instrument 
itself  was  derived.  The  Jubel-horn  may  have  been  a  ram's 
horn,  or  a  metallic  trumpet.  But  the  name,  Va^,  to  desig- 
nate, repeatedly,  a  jubilee,  and  Va'^n,  the  jiibilee,  and  Val,»a, 
in  jubilee,  and  Va^n  n;» ,  the  year  of  jubilee,  besides  the  ex- 
pression, rwn  Va'.-ij  h:»,  the  year  of  this  jubilee,  would  lead  us 
more  naturally  to  the  verb,  V^,  to  go,  to  flow,  to  run,  as  the 
origin  of  the  appellation,  by  its  peculiar  meaning  of  deliver- 
ance,  freedom,  remission,  a  flowing  forth  as  a  river.  This  is 
the  more  probable,  because  the  appellation  Vav»,  jubilee,  is  not 
first  given  in  connection  with  the  blowing  of  the  trumpet,  but 
with  the  proclamation  of  liberty.  When  the  forty-nine  years 
are  passed,  "then  shalt  thou  cause  the  trumpet  of  rejoicing  to 
sound — in  the  day  of  atonement  ye  shall  make  the  trumpet  to 
sound,"  Leviticus,  xxv.  9.  The  Hebrew,  here,  is  not  the  trum- 
pet, VaSi,  of  jubilee,  as  might  be  supposed  from  our  version, 
but,  rrsiiiri  »»*!«?,  the  trumpet  of  rejoicing  or  of  shouting  for 
joy.  After  this  trumpet-sounding,  comes  the  proclamation 
of  liberty  ;  and  then,  first,  we  have  the  name  jubilee. 

The  Hebrew,  in  its  connection,  is  full  of  meaning : 
c^V  n-r.n  Nin  ^av»  ST^OI-^  V~NS  n'-.-n  britfjp.%  and  proclaim 
liberty  throughout  the  land  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof: 
a  jubilee  it  shall  be  unto  you. 

The  leading  idea  in  the  law  is  that  of  freedom  from  servi- 
tude, and  the  proclaiming  clause  is  the  proclamation  of  lib- 
erty;  and.  from  that  proclamation,  and  not  from  the  enacting 
clauses  immediately  following,  in  regard  to  restitution  of  prop- 
erty and  the  return  to  patrimonial  possessions,  is  the  name 
of  the  jubilee  taken.  The  trumpet  of  rejoicing  shall  sound, 
and  ye  shall  hallow  the  fiftieth  year,  and  shah1  proclaim  liberty 


THE   JUBILEE    KOTHING   BUT    FOR   LIBERTY. 


277 


to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  AND  THIS  SHALL  BE  TOUB 
JUBILEE.  And  in  the  year  of  this  jubilee  ye  shall  return, 
every  man,  unto  his  possession.  And  so  on  with  the  detailed 
enactments  of  the  law.  It  is  manifest  that  this  great  year  is 
called  the  jubilee  from  its  ruling  transaction  of  liberty  :  that 
joyful  announcement  in  the  proclamation  gives  it  its  reigning 
character :  it  would  have  been  worth  little  or  nothing  without 
that.  It  was  the  breaking  of  every  yoke,  and  the  letting  ot 
every  man  go  free.* 


*  KITTO'S  CYCLOPEDIA,  Article  JU- 
BILEE. The  law  of  jubilee  was  a  con- 
tinual recognition  of  God's  sovereign 
rights,  and  of  the  equality  of  the  peo- 
ple one  with  another,  in  their  de- 
pendence on  him.  These  laws  con- 
tinually did,  what  is  needed  to  be  done 
at  intervals  in  the  best  constituted 
States,  brought  back  the  people  and 
their  constitution  to  the  first  princi- 
ples of  liberty  and  equality.  If,  every 
fifty  years,  we  could  return  where 
our  fathers  set  out  in  the  Revolution, 
there  would  be  no  more  slavery. 


"  These  laws  prevented  vast  accumu- 
lations, restrained  cupidity,  precluded 
domestic  tyranny,  and  constantly  re- 
minded rich  and  poor  of  their  essen- 
tial equality  in  themselves,  in  the 
State,  and  before  God.  Equally  be- 
nevolent in  its  aim  and  tendency  does 
this  institution  appear,  showing  how 
thoroughly  the  great  Hebrew  legis- 
lator cared  and  provided  for  individu- 
als, instead  of  favoring  classes."  '"WAE- 
B  URTOsr  adduced  this  law  in  proof  of 
the  divine  legation  of  Moses. 


CHAPTER    XXV  . 

SPECIFIC  ENACTMENTS  OF  THE  JUBILEE. — FIRST  CLAUSE  OF  PERSONAL  LIBERTT.— EX- 
AMINATION OF  THE  HEBREW  PHRASES. — NATURE  OF  THE  JUBILEE  CONTRACT. — 
MANNER  OF  TREATMENT. — MISTAKES  OF  COMMENTATORS. — No  SELLING  OF  CHIL- 
DREN FOR  DEBT  PERMITTED  BY  LAW. — FALSE  STATEMENT  OF  TRENCH. — No  MAX 
PERMITTED  TO  BE  ENSLAVED,  OR  TO  ENSLAYE  HIMSELF. 

LAW   OF   JUBILEE. — SPECIFIC  ENACTMENTS    OF 'THE   LAW. 

THE  enacting  clauses  from  Leviticus,  xxv.  39-46,  are  occu- 
pied with  the  regulation  of  the  treatment  of  such  Hebrew  and 
heathen  servants  respectively,  as  were  bound  to  servitude 
until  the  jubilee.  The  Hebrew  servants  so  bound  were  to  be 
treated  as  hired  servants,  not  as  apprenticed  servants ;  but 
the  heathen  servants  so  bound  might  be  employed  as  appren- 
ticed servants,  and  not  as  hired  servants,  up  to  the  period  of 
the  jubilee.  And  always  there  was  to  be  maintained  this 
distinction  ;  for  ever  the  quality  of  apprenticeship  to  the  ju- 
bilee was  to  belong  to  the  heathen,  not  to  the  Hebrews ;  the 
heathen  were  to  be  the  possession  of  the  Hebrews  and  their 
posterity,  as  an  inheritance  or  stock,  from  whom,  and  not  ordi- 
narily from  the  Hebrews,  they  might  provide  themselves  for 
such  a  length  of  time  with  apprenticed  servants,  as  well  as  hired. 
Subject  always  to  the  law  of  freedom  every  fifty  years,  during 
that  interval  all  their  apprentices  for  longer  than  six  years, 
all  their  servants  obtained  as  apprentices  till  the  jubilee, 
and  to  be  treated  as  apprentices  up  to  that  time,  and  not  as 
Jjired  servants,  were  to  be  of  the  heathen,  or  the  stranger, 
for  ever,  and  not  of  the  Hebrew.  But  every  fiftieth  year  was 
a  year  of  jubilee  throughout  the  land  for  all  the  inhabitants 
thereof,  Hebrew  or  heathen,  all  the  inhabitants,  of  whatever 


SPECIFIC   JUBILEE   ENACTMENTS.  279 

class  or  station.  The  heathen  apprenticed  servant  was  not 
regarded,  because  obtained  of  the  heathen,  as  on  that  ac- 
count not  an  inhabitant  of  the  land  ;  on  the  contrary,  this 
grand  statute  was  evidently  made  additional  to  all  the  other 
statutes  of  relief  and  release,  for  the  special  benefit  of  all  those 
whose  case  the  other  statutes  would  not  cover. 

The  chapter  of  laws  in  regard  to  the  jubilee  is  occupied, 
first,  with  specific  enactments  as  to  the  operation  of  the  ju- 
bilee on  the  distribution  or  restoration  of  personal  posses- 
sions ;  secondly,  with  similar  specific  enactments  as  to  per- 
sonal liberty.  It  is  necessary  to  separate  the  respective 
clauses  in  regard  to  liberty,  and  to  analyze  them  with  great 
care. 

CLAUSE   FIRST,  OF  PERSONAL   LIBERTY. 

The  first  clause  is  from  verse  39  to  43  inclusive.  We 
quote  it  in  our  common  version,  because  it  is  essential  at  this 
point  to  remark  the  false  sense  put  upon  the  law  by  the  use 
of  the  English  word  bondmen,  assumed  as  meaning  slaves. 
The  effect  of  this  construction  is  like  that  of  loading  dice,  or 
of  forging  an  additional  cipher  to  a  ten  pound  note,  making 
it  worth,  apparently,  instead  of  10  a  100.  The  clause  is  as 
follows :  "  If  thy  brother  that  dwelleth  by  thee  be  waxen 
poor,  and  be  sold  unto  thee,  thou  shalt  not  compel  him  to 
serve  as  a  bond-servant,  but  as  an  hired  servant,  and  as  a 
sojourner  he  shall  be  with  thee,  and  shall  serve  thee  unto  the 
year  of  jubilee  ;  and  then  shall  he  depart  from  thee,  he  and 
his  children  with  him,  and  shall  return  unto  his  own  family, 
and  unto  the  possessions  of  his  fathers  shall  he  return.  For 
they  are  my  servants,  which  I  brought  forth  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt ;  they  shall  not  be  sold  as  bondmen.  Thou  shalt 
not  rule  over  him  with  rigor,  but  shalt  fear  thy  God." 

We  must  examine  the  Hebrew,  phrase  by  phrase.  In  the 
first  verse,  be  waxen  poor,  and  be  sold  unto  thee,  ^V— tsfcs',  :[Ma;, 
wax  poor,  and  sell  himself  unto  thee.  Beyond  all  question, 


280  TREATMENT  OF  APPRENTICES. 


the  translation  of  istes,  Niphal,  of  isto  (the  word  here  used 
for  setting),  should  be,  sell  himself.  1.  Niphal,  as  reflexive 
of  Kal,  admits  it ;  2.  The  context  requires  it ;  3.  In  the 
47th  verse  the  translators  have  so  rendered  it,  if  thy  brother 
sett  himself  unto  the  stranger,  the  Hebrew  word  and  form 
being  precisely  the  same,  "»£tes.  The  context  requires  it, 
because,  being  a  Hebrew,  he  could  not  be  sold  by  another ; 
it  is  poverty  on  account  of  which  he  sells  himself,  and  he  is 
not  sold  for  debt  or  for  crime ;  and  if  any  master  had  pos- 
sessed the  power  to  sell  him,  his  waxing  poor  would  not  have 
been  the  reason.  His  waxing  poor  is  the  reason  for  selling 
himself,  or,  in  other  words,  apprenticing  himself,  until  the 
year  of  jubilee;  and  by  law,  no  being  but  himself  had  this 
power  over  him,  or  could  make  such  a  contract.  And  it  was 
perfectly  voluntary  on  his  part,  a  transaction  which  he  en- 
tered into  for  his  own  convenience  and  relief. 

MANNER     OF     TREATMENT. 

The  next  Hebrew  phrase  respects  the  manner  in  which  the 
master  to  whom  he  had  thus  hired  himself  was  to  treat  him  ; 
it  was  a  proviso  guarding  and  protecting  the  poor  servant 
from  a  despotic  and  cruel  exercise  of  authority.  It  is  trans- 
lated, Thou  shall  not  compel  him  to  serve  as  a  bond-servant ; 
but  the  Hebrew  is  simply  as  follows :  nbrri— j&  tzy  rrh?  -a, 
thou  shalt  not  impose  upon  him  the  service  of  a  servant,  that 
is,  the  hard  work  of  a  servant,  who,  not  being  engaged  "vsrs, 
as  a  hired  servant,  by  the  day  or  the  .year,  for  a  particular 
service,  could  be  set  to  any  work  without  any  new  contract 
or  additional  wages.  As  we  have  clearly  seen,  there  is  no 
term  nor  phrase  in  the  Hebrew  language  to  signify  what  we 
mean  by  the  words  slave,  bondman,  or  bond-servant ;  and 
there  was  no  law  in  the  Hebrew  legislation  which  permitted 
any  Hebrew  to  be,  or  to  be  treated  as,  slave,  bondman,  or 
bond-servant.  But  a  poor  man,  making  a  general  contract 
of  his  services  till  the  jubilee,  might  be  cruelly  treated  by  his 


MISTAKES    OF   COMMENTATORS.  281 

master,  when  there  had  been  some  proviso  specifying  and 
limiting  the  power  and  the  manner.  Therefore,  when  it  is 
said,  Thou  shalt  not  impose  upon  him  the  service  of  a  servant 
(that  is,  an  n2»,  hired  as  a  servant  of  all  work),  it  is  imme- 
diately added,  As  a  hired  servant  and  as  a  sojourner  he  shall 
be  with  thee,  ipa?.  rrrv;  ae'iro  "^t.jw  5  and  this  phrase  is  explan- 
atory of  the  other,  and  introduced  to  make  the  other  specific 
and  indubitable  in  its  meaning.  The  freedom  and  indepen- 
dence of  a  hired  servant  and  a  sojourner  were  guaranteed  to 
the  Hebrew  servant,  although  he  had  engaged  to  be  with  his 
master  as  an  ns5>,  until  the  jubilee. 

The  proviso  is  then  introduced  for  his  return  with  his  chil- 
dren to  the  possession  of  his  fathers  in  the  year  of  jubilee  ; 
and,  last  of  all,  it  is  repeated  again  (verse  42)  that  they  shall 
not  sell  themselves  with  the  selling  of  a  servant^  an  "is*,  and 
the  master  should  not  rule  over  him  with  rigor,  but  should 
fear  the  Lord. 

CARELESSNESS    AND    MISTAKES    OF    COMMENTATORS. 

Here  we  can  not  but  notice  the  extreme  carelessness  with 
which,  for  want  of  examination  of  the  Hebrew  and  the  con- 
text, and  in  consequence,  also,  of  taking  for  granted  the  pre- 
conceived opinions  on  this  subject,  as  if  slavery  among  the 
Hebrews  were  a  thing  not  to  be  doubted,  some  able  writers 
have  fallen  into  very  gross  errors.  As  an  example,  we  find  in 
Trench's  work  on  the  Parables  the  following  assertion  :  "  That 
it  was  allowed  under  the  Mosaic  law  to  sell  an  insolvent 
debtor  is  implicitly  stated,  Leviticus,  xxv  39  ;  and  verse  41 
makes  it  probable  that  his  family  also  came  into  bondage  with 
him  ;  and  we  find  allusion  to  the  same  custom  in  other  places 
(2  Kings,  iv.  1 ;  Nehemiah,  v.  6  ;  Isaiah,  i.  1  ;  Iviii.  6  ;  Jeremiah, 
xxxiv.  8-11 ;  Amos,  ii.  6,  viii.  6)."*  Singular  indeed  that  this 
writer  should  call  Leviticus,  xxv.  39,  an  implicit  statement  that 
by  the  laws  of  Moses  it  was  allowed  to  sell  an  insolvent  debtor, 
*  Trench :  Notes  on  the  Parables,  p.  127. 


282  FALSE   STATEMENTS   REFUTED. 

when  there  is  no  reference  whatever  in  the  passage  or  the  chap- 
ter to  any  such  law,  or  to  any  sale  for  debt,  nor  any  intimation 
that  any  such  thing  was  possible  !  The  references  to  the  pas- 
sages in  illustration  are  instances  of  mistakes  equally  gross  ;  but, 
as  we  have  before  considered  those  passages,  we  shall  revert  to 
only  one,  that  in  2  Kings,  iv.  1,  because  it  is  often  perverted. 
There  is,  in  that  passage,  no  mention  of  any  sale,  nor  any  intima- 
tion of  it ;  but  it  is  said,  "  The  creditor  has  come  to  take  unto 
him  my  two  sons  to  be  servants  (o-rrsV)."  That  is,  has  come 
demanding  that  my  two  sons  be  put  to  service  till  they  work 
out  the  debt ;  further  than  this  there  is  no  demand ;  and  as 
to  any  law  for  the  sale  of  the  debtor,  it  exists  only  in  the 
imagination  of  the  writer ;  there  was  no  such  law  nor  per- 
mission. But  thus  carelessly  and  frequently  have  assertions 
been  made  and  reiterated,  of  which,  if  any  student  wishes  to 
be  convinced,  let  him  turn  to  Home's  Introduction,  to  the 
chapter  on  the  condition  of  slaves  and  servants,  and  the  cus- 
toms relating  to  them.  He  will  find,  on  a  single  page,  almost 
as  many  mistakes  and  misstatements  as  there  are  lines;  all 
proceeding  from  the  first  false  assumption,  taken  up  without 
investigation,  that  all  the  servitude  in  the  Old  Testament  was 
slavery,  and  that,  wherever  the  word  servant  occurs,  it  means 
slave.  These  statements  have  been  repeated  so  often,  that 
they  have  come  to  be  regarded  as  truisms,  and,  by  possession 
and  reiteration,  are  in  many  minds  impregnable. 

The  implicit  statement  Mr.  Trench  might  have  found  to  be, 
on  comparing  verse  42  with  verse  3.9,  that  they  shall  not  be 
sold  with  the  selling  of  bondmen :  "Thou  shalt  not  compel 
him  to  serve  as  a  bond-servant;"  and,  in  the  original,  he 
might  have  found  that  it  is  the  sale  of  the  man  by  himself 
which  is  referred  to,  and  under  such  circumstances  as  would 
put  him  in  a  condition,  from  being  entirely  poor,  of  so  great 
improvement  as  to  be  able  himself  to  buy  back  his  contract 
in  a  short  time.  The  making  of  the  contract  of  his  services, 
for  a  specified  time,  was  said  to  be  the  selling  of  himself;  and 


TIIE     ERROR    AND     CORRECTION.  283 

the  securing  a  right,  by  contract,  to  those  services,  was  the 
buying  of  a  servant. 

PROOF  AND  CORRECTION  OF  THE  ERROR. 

Even  Michaelis,  who  applies  the  word  slave  to  the  Hebrew 
six  years'  servant,  thereby  showing  that  he  does  not  mean 
slave,  but  a  voluntary  hired  laborer,  admits  that  he  can  point 
out  no  such  law  in  the  Mosaic  institutes  as  a  law  authorizing 
the  sale  of  men,  women  or  children  for  debt.*  On  the  con- 
trary, this  was  an  outrage  against  law,  against  both  the  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  law.  This  is  proved  from  Nehemiah,  v.  5,  8, 
where  the  nobles  and  the  rulers  are  accused  by  Neheraiah  of 
having  sanctioned  and  committed  this  very  oppression ;  and 
he  sets  a  great  assembly  against  them,  and  arraigns  them  for 
the  crime.  His  argument  plainly  is,  that  their  procedure  is 
contrary  to  the  law  of  God,  for  he  says,  It  is  not  good  that 
ye  do  ;  ought  ye  not  to  walk  in  the  fear  of  our  God  ?  And  it 
is  added,  that  they  did  not  attempt  to  excuse  or  justify  them- 
selves. Then  they  held  their  peace,  and  found  nothing  to  an- 
swer. The  exaction  of  usury  was  put  along  with  this  crime. 

Now  if  it  had  been  enjoined  in  the  divine  law,  or  permitted, 
that  a  man's  children  could  be  sold  as  slaves  for  the  parent's 
debt,  then  nobles,  rulers  and  usurers  would  not  have  remained 
quiet  under  this  accusation,  would  not  have  failed  to  justify 

*  MLchaelis,  Commentaries,  Article  proofs,  which,  on  examination,  incon- 
148,  vol.  ii.  This  celebrated  scholar  trovertibly  prove  the  contrary.  In 
was  one  of  the  earliest  writers  on  the  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra  for  1856,  in  an 
Old  Testament  who  used  the  word  article  on  "Aliens  in  Israel,"  the  writ- 
slave  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  do-  er  declares  that  one  of  the  kinds  of 
mestic  service  among  the  Hebrews;  service  among  the  Hebrews  was  "ab- 
but  after  him  there  was  a  deluge,  and  solute  and  hereditary  slavery,"  and 
to  this  day,  professedly  critical  writ-  that  "foreigners  could  purchase  He- 
ers  reiterate  the  assertion  that  the  brew  slaves,"  and  "  Hebrews  foreign 
Hebrews  held  plaves,  and  refer  to  slaves,"  and  among  other  authorities, 
Michaelis  for  their  proof,  but  not  to  appeals  to  Michaelis  and  the  Mishna  I 
the  Scriptures.  They  are  also  in  the  This  amazing  carelessness  has  become 
habit  of  asserting  the  existence  of  a  habit.  But  see,  for  its  correction 
slavery,  and  referring  to  passages  as  SAALSCHDTZ,  Das  Mosaische  Rechb 

Vol.  II.,  714,  etc. 


284  IMPOSSIBLE    PROCEDUBES. 

themselves  by  law.  But  they  did  no  such  thing,  simply  be- 
cause they  could  not ;  they  knew  that  their  oppressive  proced- 
ures were  contrary  to  the  divine  law.  Moreover,  it  is  singu- 
larly in  point,  and  interesting  to  note,  that  certain  articles  of 
property  were  forbidden  to  be  taken  for  debt,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, Exodus,  xxii.  26,  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  6,  among 
which  were  a  man's  outer  garment  or  coat,  and  the  upper  and 
nether  millstones  ;  articles  of  such  necessity  to  personal  com- 
fort and  the  subsistence  of  the  household,  that  it  was  not  per- 
mitted on  any  account  to  take  them  away  or  sell  them.  Now 
it  is  impossible  that  a  man's  coat  should  be  regarded  as  dearer 
to  him  or  more  sacredly  in  his  possession  than  his  children ; 
that  a  law  should  be  framed  forbidding  his  garments  and  his 
household  furniture  from  being  attached  by  the  sheriff,  but  at 
the  same  time  permitting  the  creditor  to  take  his  children ; 
a  law  permitting  a  poor  widow  to  keep  in  her  house  the  upper 
and  nether  millstones,  and  a  change  of  raiment,  but  not  her 
own  children  ;  a  law  preventing  the  creditor  from  taking  away 
her  household  utensils,  but  allowing  him  to  sell  her  children, 
for  whose  sake  alone  her  furniture  was  valuable  to  her,  and  by 
whose  help  alone  she  could  obtain  corn  to  grind  between  the 
millstones.  She  could  have  pounded  corn  on  an  emergency 
with  common  stones,  but  nothing  could  supply  the  place  of 
her  children ;  and  to  suppose  that  a  divine  law  could,  at  one 
and  the  same  time,  allow  her  children  to  be  sold  by  an  op- 
pressive creditor  as  slaves,  while  under  the  plea  of  kindness  it 
would  not  permit  the  same  oppressor  to  take  her  household 
furniture  from  her,  is  to  suppose  an  absurdity,  is  to  fasten  an 
inconsistency  and  reproach  upon  a  divine  revelation  too  crude 
and  monstrous  to  be  entertained  for  a  moment. 

A  man  that  supposed  he  was  commenting  upon  a  divine 
revelation  would  be  restrained  from  such  heedless  assertions ; 
but  when  the  Scriptures  fall  into  the  hands  of  men  that  have 
no  more  belief  in  their  divine  inspiration  than  they  have  in 
that  of  the  laws  of  Lycurgus  or  the  poems  of  Homer,  and  the 


THE    FATHERLESS    PROTECTED.  285 

commentaries  and  theological  decisions  of  such  men  are  allowed 
to  direct  the  opinions  of  the  church,  and  set  the  style  and 
current  of  theological  literature,  there  is  no  error  or  contra- 
diction, the  prevalence  of  which  can  be  a  subject  of  astonish- 
ment. Mistakes,  absurdities,  and  even  injustice  and  impiety, 
may  come  to  be  installed  and  maintained  as  articles  of  divine 
inspiration.  Where  would  be  the  vaunted  benevolence  and 
wisdom  of  the  Mosaic  laws,  where  the  proof  of  their  having 
come  from  God,  if  such  monstrous  abominations  of  cruelty 
as  those  necessary  for  the  support  and  sanction  of  the  sys- 
tem of  human  slavery  were  found,  permitted,  or  enjoined  in 
them? 

Now  let  it  be  remembered,  in  connection  with  the  case  be- 
fore us,  how  explicit  and  benevolent  was  the  divine  statute  in 
Exodus,  xxii.  22,  23,  also  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  16,  17:  "Ye 
shall  not  afflict  any  WIDOW,  or  FATHERLESS  CHILD.  If  thou 
afflict  them  in  any  wise,  and  they  cry  unto  me  at  all,  I  will 
surely  hear  their  cry.  Thou  shalt  not  pervert  the  judgment 
of  the  stranger  nor  the  fatherless,  nor  take  the  widow's  rai- 
ment to  pledge."  It  is  not  to  be  imagined  for  a  moment  that 
though  the  usurer  or  the  creditor  was  forbidden  from  taking 
the  widow's  raiment,  he  might  take  her  children  and  sell  them 
for  slaves,  leaving  her  hopeless  and  desolate.  If  children  were 
not  permitted  to  be  punished  for  the  father's  sins,  much  more, 
most  certainly,  would  they  not  be  permitted  to  be  sold  as 
slaves,  as  merchandise,  for  their  father's  debts. 

But  the  thing  was  impossible  on  still  another  ground.  At 
the  end  of  every  seven  years,  the  creditor  was  compelled  to 
make  a  release,  and  could  not  exact  the  bond,  but  it  was  null 
and  void.  At  the  same  time,  in  that  seventh  year,  every  serv- 
ant was  released  and  free,  on  whatever  grounds  apprenticed. 
This  was  the  universal,  fundamental  law,  interwoven  in  the 
very  texture  of  the  Jewish  constitution,  and  no  custom  or  pro- 
cedure was  permitted  contrary  to  it.  How  then  can  any  man 
imagine  that  such  a  cruelty  as  the  selling  of  a  widow's  children 


286  UNJUST   LAWS   NOT  TO    BE    OBEYED. 

by  the  creditor  into  slavery  for  debt  could  be  permissible  under 
this  law  ?  It  could  be  possible  only  by  the  direct  violation 
of  it.  Deuteronomy,  xv.  1,  2,  9,  12.  The  statutes  of  Omri  and 
Ahab,  the  express  subjects  of  the  divine  reprobation,  and  for- 
bidden to  be  obeyed,  may  have  included  such  wickedness.  It 
was  under  the  dominion  of  their  tyranny  that  the  incident  in 
2  Kings,  iv.  1,  is  reported  as  having  taken  place.  But  what- 
ever the  transaction  there  intended,  there  was  nothing  of 
slavery  in  it,  nor,  by  the  Jewish  law,  could  there  possibly  be 
any  approximation  thereto.  The  woman,  by  direction  of  Elisha, 
sold  the  oil,  and  paid  the  creditor,  but  she  was  not  permitted 
to  sell  her  children,  nor  indeed  is  there  in  the  original  any  in- 
timation of  any  such  possibility,  the  utmost  of  the  danger 
there  stated  being  just  this,  namely,  that  her  dead  husband's 
creditor  had  come  to  take  her  two  sons  to  be  to  him  for  serv- 
ants,  that  is,  to  work  out,  by  their  service,  the  amount  of 
debt,  but  not  to  be  sold  in  any  way.  But  even  for  this  there 
Avas  no  law ;  it  is  wholly  a  conjecture  of  the  commentators, 
and  can  nowhere.be  pointed  out. 

On  the  contrary,  in  Job,  xxiv.  9,  the  taking  of  the  father- 
less child  from  the  mother,  and,  as  Michaelis  translates  it,  the 
child  of  the  needy  for  a  pledge,  is  set  down  as  an  act  of  mon- 
strous wickedness,  along  with  other  similar  piratical  crimes,  as 
the  removing  of  land-marks,  stealing  of  sheep,  killing  the  poor 
and  needy,  and  rebelling  against  the  light.  The  crime  of  child- 
stealing  is  here  catalogued  along  with  that  of  compelling  men 
to  labor  without  wages,  and  that  also  of  murder  and  adultery, 
and  the  whole  description  is  of  the  character  and  habits  of 
kidnappers  and  slaveholders  in  defiance  of  God's  law. 

NO    MAN    PERMITTED     TO    BE    ENSLAVED,    OR    TO    ENSLAVE 
HIMSELF. 

Here  again,  Leviticus,  xxv.  42,  the  common  version  trans- 
lates as  follows :  They  shall  not  be  sold  as  bondmen,  although 
the  verb  is  the  same,  and  the  form  is  the  same  (Niphal  of  n^te) 


NONE   PERMITTED    TO    BE   ENSLAVED.  287 

as  in  verse  39,  and  afterward  47,  where  it  is  rendered  sell  him- 
self. But  the  Hebrew  is  simple  and  clear,  las  msfc«  snsw  xV, 

•J  *  "•*  T  '.*   *       •    •  ;  f    •  f 

they  shall  not,  sell  themselves  the  selling  of  a  servant,  that  is, 
an  "ray  of  unlimited  contract,  and  of  all  work.  This  phrase, 
1=5  ti"E*.*;,  is  nowhere  else  employed.  It  seems  to  denote  a 
venal  transaction,  as  in  regard  to  a  piece  of  goods,  or  a  thing 
over  which  the  buyer  and  the  seller  have  the  supreme  power. 
Such  a  transaction  would  have  been,  in  reference  to  a  human 
being,  a  slave  trade ;  and  such  a  transaction  in  regard  to  a  hu- 
man being,  was  absolutely  and  expressly  forbidden.  The  He- 
brew people  were  God's  property,  and  God's  servants,  and 
they  should  never  sell  themselves,  nor  be  sold,  as  the  prop- 
erty of  others.  Not  only  was  this  transaction  forbidden  to 
any  one  for  another,  and  to  any  two  for  any  third  party,  but 
to  every  one  for  himself.  No  man  was  permitted  or  had  the 
right,  to  enslave  himself.  The  voluntary  hiring  of  himself  to 
a  Hebrew  master,  or  even  to  a  stranger,  as  we  shall  see,  to 
the  year  of  jubilee,  was  not  slavery,  nor  any  approximation 
thereto.  And  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  its  ever  passing 
into  slavery,  the  proviso  was  inserted,  making  it  a  crime  to 
apprentice  themselves,  or  to  be  apprenticed  beyond  a  limited 
time. 

It  is  very  plain,  therefore,  that  the  words  bond-servant  and 
bondman  are  a  wrong  and  very  unfortunate  translation,  be- 
cause they  convey  inevitably,  to  an  English  ear,  a  meaning 
wholly  different  from  that  of  the  original.  They  seem  to 
recognize  slavery,  where  no  such  thing  is  to  be  found.  By 
the  central,  fundamental  law,  which  we  have  already  exam- 
ined, no  Hebrew  could  be  made  to  serve  as  a  bond-servant 
or  bondman,  under  any  circumstances,  but  only  as  an  appren- 
ticed servant  for  six  years.  The  object,  therefore,  of  the  en- 
acting clause  which  we  have  now  examined  was  simply  this, 
namely,  that  if  he  became  so  poor  as  to  be  obliged  to  enter 
into  a  contract  for  service  till  the  year  of  jubilee,  he  should 
not  be  held,  even  during  that  time,  as  an  apprenticed  serv- 


288  CONTRACT   OF   SERVANTS  AND   CHILDREN. 

ant  merely,  but  as  a  hired  servant  and  sojourner.  And  if 
the  question  recurs,  In  what  particular  as  a  hired  servant 
and  a  sojourner?  the  answer  is  plain:  First,  in  respect  to 
specific  labor,  in  contradistinction  from  the  obligation  of  the 
servant  of  all  work.  The  hired  servant  and  the  sojourner 
could  contract  for  themselves  in  some  particular  service,  and 
could  not  be  commanded  to  any  other  without  a  new  agree- 
ment ;  the  servant  of  all  work  was  of  an  inferior  condition,  em- 
ployed for  any  labor  whatever  of  which  his  master  might  have 
need,  or  for  which  he  might  require  him.  Secondly,  in  re- 
spect to  appointed  wages  at  specific  times,  which  wages  must 
be  continued,  although  the  contract  of  service  was  till  the  year 
of  jubilee;  and  this  in  contradistinction  from  the  condition  of 
the  servant  whose  purchase-money,  or  the  payment  of  his 
services  and  time,  for  whatever  period  engaged,  was  all  given 
to  himself  at  the  outset,  and  who  could,  consequently,  after- 
wards have  no  claim  for  any  thing  more.  We  have  already 
illustrated  this  distinction  in  the  consideration  of  Job,  vii.  2, 
where  the  servant,  the  139,  who  had  already  received  his 
money  for  his  time  and  services,  beforehand,  according  to  the 
ordinary  six  years'  contract,  earnestly  desireth  the  shadow,  but 
the  hired  servant,  the  Tito,  looks  for  his  wages,  desires  his 
wages,  which  are  the  result  of  his  accomplishing  as  an  hireling 
his  day.  No  servant,  or  nw,  served  without  payment  for  his 
work ;  but  the  ordinary  -75?  had  received  his  payment  before- 
hand, or  when  the  contract  was  made ;  and  the  distinctive 
meaning  of  that  word  excluded  the  idea  of  periodical  wages 
after  the  work  was  done. 

Once  more,  we  must  remark  on  this  clause  the  provision  in 
regard  to  the  Hebrew  servant,  for  himself  and  his  children. 
It  presents  a  case  in  which,  being  hired  until  the  jubilee,  he 
might  have  children  born  to  him  during  his  period  of  service 
as  contracted  for.  These  children  were  born  in  his  master's 
house,  in  his  master's  family,  but  they  belonged  to  himself, 
not  to  his  master.  They  were  not  slaves,  and  could  not  be, 


WRONG   TRANSLATION   OF   TEEMS.  289 

any  more  than  himself.  Yet  they  were  examples  of  the 
rra  -ify,  the  born  in  the  house,  as  in  Abraham's  family,  and  the 
trained  ones,  as  in  his  household,  and  rra— is  a,  the  sons  of  the 
house,  as  in  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  7.  They  were  not  bondmen,  and 
could  not  be  made  such,  or  held  as  such,  but  by  law  were  free. 
The  fact  of  their  being  born  in  the  house  of  their  master  while 
their  father  was  in  his  service  did  not  give  the  master  the 
least  claim  upon  them  as  his  servants,  without  a  separate  vol- 
untary contract,  or  payment  for  their  services.  All  were  born 
free,  and  their  freedom  could  not  be  taken  from  them,  neither 
could  they  be  made  servants  at  the  will  of  the  master  alone ; 
nor  could  the  father  sell  them,  though  he  might  apprentice  them 
for  a  season,  yet  never  beyond  the  period  assigned  by  law.* 

UNAUTHORIZED   TRANSLATION   OF   TERMS. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  our 
translators,  for  want  of  an  English  word  which  would  express 
the  difference  between  a  hired  servant,  the  "vsto,  and  an  ap- 
prenticed servant  of  all  work,  the  t^y ;  and  also  for  want  of  a 
word  answering  to  the  extremest  meaning  of  the  same  word 
nay,  which  never  meant  among  the  Hebrews  a  slave,  should 
have  taken  the  words  bond-servant  and  bondman,  as  well  as 
the  word  servant,  to  translate  the  same  Hebrew  word  for 
servant,  giving  it  thus  a  meaning  which  it  can  not  bear  in  the 
original,  and  at  different  times  meanings  directly  opposite. 

*  BLACKSTONE'S  COMMENTARIES  ON  ing  for  its  similarity  with  that  of serv- 

TIIE  LAWS  OF  ENGLAND,  vol.  i.,  p.  425.  ants  among  the  Hebrews.     It  might 

— This  great  writer  describes  three  with  just  as  much  propriety  be  as- 

classes  of  servants,  acknowledged  by  serted  that  the  intra  mcenia  servants 

the  laws  of  England.     First  menial  in  England  were  slaves,  as  that  the 

servants,  so  called  from  being  intra  sons  of  the  houselwld  in  Judea  were 

mama,  or  domestics ;  second,  appren-  slaves.      The    domestics    in    Judge 

tices,  so  called  from  apprendre,  to  learn,  Blackstone's  own    family  could   be 

usually  bound  for  a  term  of  years;  proved  to  have  been  slaves  by  the 

third,  laborers,  who  are  hired  by  the  same  method  in  which  those  in  the 

day  or  the  week,  and  do  not  live  intra  family  of  Abraham  have   been  as-1 

mcenia,  as  part  of  the  family.  sumed  as  such. 

The  classification  here  is  very  strik- 

13 


290  BONDMEN  FOR  SERVANTS. 

We  have  before  noted  some  of  the  reasons  why  they  took 
this  course ;  as,  for  example,  because  the  unpaid  servitude 
into  which  the  Hebrews  were  compelled  in  Egypt  is  designated 
by  t33>  rnhs  ;  and  it  is  said,  Remember  that  thou  wast  an  izv 
in  Egypt.  Our  translators  said,  Remember  that  thou  wast  a 
bondman  in  Egypt ;  but  truly  the  word  would  have  been 
more  fully  rendered  by  the  phrase  an  oppressed  servant, 
because,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Hebrews  were  not  slaves  in 
Egypt,  were  not  held  as  such ;  a  fact  which  makes  God's  pro- 
hibiting of  the  Hebrews  from  laying  the  same  oppressive  serv- 
itude upon  others  much  more  significant.  This  bond-service 
they  were  forbidden  by  law  from  imposing  upon  their  own 
servants,  who  never  were,  and  never  could  be,  what  in  com- 
mon usage  we  understand  by  the  word  bondmen. 

But  seeing  the  word  repeatedly  used  to  describe  a  class  of 
servants  among  the  Hebrews,  what  other  conclusion  can  the 
mere  English  reader  adopt,  unless  he  goes  into  a  very  critical 
comparison  of  passages,  than  that  such  servants  were  slaves? 
Yet  the  very  word  thus  translated  is  the  word  used  for  na- 
tive Hebrew  servants,  who  sometimes,  as  this  law  of  jubilee 
under  consideration  proves,  were  held  in  servitude  just  as  long 
as  any  servants  of  the  heathen  or  of  strangers  could  be,  that 
is,  until  the  jubilee,  but  could  not,  under  any  circumstances, 
be  slaves.  We  have  sometimes  admitted  the  word  bondman 
as  the  translation  of  155,  in  our  argument,  to  describe  the  rig- 
orous rule  which  the  Hebrews  were  forbidden  from  using  in 
regard  to  their  servants ;  but  it  is  inapplicable  as  the  true 
translation  of  the  word,  whether  the  servants  designated  are 
Hebrew  or  adopted  heathen. 

We  might  suppose  that  our  translators  had  followed  the 
Septuagint  translation;  but  the  Septuagint  frequently  uses 
Traig  where  the  English  version  uses  bondman,  for  the  same 
word  n??  ;  as,  for  example,  Deuteronomy,  xxviii.  68:  Ye  shall 
be  sold  for  bondmen  and  bondwomen,  Septuagint,  naldag  Kal 
,  Hebrew,  n'n&icij'i  tj"»ia£.  In  Deuteronomy,  xxiii.  15 : 


THE   SEPTUAGINT   VERSION.  291 

TJwu  shalt  not  deliver  unto  Jiis  master  the  servant  who  hath 
escaped,  the  English  version  and  the  Septuagint  agree,  and 
the  word  is  translated  servant  and  rralda,  for  the  Hebrew  TM. 
But  in  Deuteronomy,  xv.  15  :  "Remember  that  thou  wast  a 
bondman  in  Egypt,"  the  same  Hebrew  word  is  translated 
bondman,  and  Septuagint  olicKTrjg.  The  same  in  Deuteron- 
omy, vi.  21.  But  now  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  55,  the  same  Hebrew 
word  is  translated  by  the  Septuagint,  in  the  same  verse,  both 
otKerai,  and  TraiSeg,  but  in  our  English  version,  servants,  not 
bondmen.  Singular  then  it  is,  that  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  44,  Both 
thy  bondmen  and  thy  bondmaids,  ^MCSU  ipa»i.,  is  translated  by 
the  Septuagint  Kal  muf  nal  Traidiaicr),  and  precisely  the  same 
words  at  the  close  of  the  same  verse  are  translated  dovkov  ical 


This  use  of  terms  by  the  Septuagint  translators  proves,  as 
we  shall  see  in  the  argument  from  the  New  Testament,  that 
the  occurrence  of  the  Greek  words  for  slave  does  not  neces- 
sarily indicate  slavery,  they  having  been  applied,  by  very  com- 
mon usage,  to  describe  servants,  of  whom  it  is  known  posi- 
tively that  they  were  free,  and  never  had  been,  and  could  not 
possibly  be,  at  any  time,  slaves.  Just  so  the  Greek  term  for 
slavery  is  applied  to  a  service  which  is  known  to  have  been  a 
free  service,  proving  that  no  argument  can  be  instituted  for 
the  existence  of  slavery,  merely  from  the  use  of  that  term. 
The  person  called  a  dovkog  may  have  been  a  free  servant,  and 
the  service  called  dovheia  may  have  been  a  voluntary,  free, 
paid  contract.* 

*  JOSEPHUS,  Antiq.,  B.  3,  Ch.  xii.,  the  sale  of  a  Hebrew  to  the  stock  of 

Sect.  3,  and  B.  16,  Ch.  i.,  furnish  in-  the  stranger's  family.     For  an  exam- 

stances  of  the  usage  of  dovfevu  and  pie  of  the  unauthorized  use  of  terras, 

tiovAetav  for  free  service.     In  the  first  and  of  error  thereby  perpetuated,  see 

of   these  cases    Josephus    uses    the  MICHAELIS,  Laws  of  Moses,  Vol.  II., 

phrase  employed  in  Lev.  xxv.,  47,  Art.  145.     "  Whoever  devoted  him- 

though  of  the  same  stock,  that  is,  the  self  to  God  became  a  SLAVE  of  the 

native  Hebrew  stock.     It  illustrates  sanctuary  1"  f 
the  meaning  of  what  is  described  as 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 


SECOND  CLAUSE  OP  PERSONAL  LIBERTY.— SERVANTS  OF  STRANGERS. — SEPTUAGINT  TRANS- 
LATION OF  THE  VERSE. — MANNER  IN  wmcn  THE  HEBREWS  MIGHT  OBTAIN  SERV- 
ANTS OF  THE  HEATHEN. — THIRD  CLAUSE  OF  PERSONAL  LIBERTY. — RECRUITING 
CLASSES  FOR  SERVANTS. — IMPOSSIBLE  TO  MAKE  THEM  SLAVES. — OPPRESSION  OF 
THEM  FORBIDDEN. 


CLAUSE   SECOND,  OF   PERSONAL   LIBERTY. 

THIS  verse,  Leviticus,  xxv.  44,  constitutes  the  second  clause, 
as  to  personal  liberty,  in  the  law  of  jubilee.  The  English 
translation  is,  Both  thy  bondmen  and  thy  bondmaids,  which 
thou  shalt  have,  shall  be  of  the  heathen  that  are  round  about 
you  /  of  them  shall  ye  buy  bondmen  and  bondmaids.  We 
must  compare  this  with  the  Hebrew  in  full,  and  the  Hebrew 
with  the  Septuagint,  and  we  shall  see  an  important  difference 
from  the  true  meaning  of  the  original.  The  Hebrew  is  as  follows: 
crpa  bsirpiqD  "I»N  b'XAH  MN»  jjV— s^ro  -vex  ^w=?*5  ^"A?1 
nttN1}  nas  »pp,  literally,  And  thy  man-servants,  and  thy 
maid- servants,  which  shall  be  to  you  from  among  the  na- 
tions that  are  round  about  you,  of  them  shall  ye  obtain  man- 
servant and  maid-servant. 

The  meaning  of  this,  at  first  sight,  would  seem  to  be :  he 
shall  be  permitted  to  obtain  (or  purchase,  according  to  the 
Hebrew  idiom  for  a  contract  made  with  a  servant),  from  as 
many  servants  as  may  be  with  you,  from  among  the  nations 
round  about  you,  men-servants,  and  maid-servants,  or,  the 
man-servant  and  the  maid-servant.  The  Hebrew  construction 
does  not  read,  that  "  ye  shall  purchase  of  the  nations  that  are 
round  about  you,"  but,  "  of  the  servants  that  have  come  to 
you  from  among  those  nations."  Ye  may  take  such  as  your 


PROVISOS  TTm>ER   THE   JUBILEE.  293 

servants,  making  with  them  such  contracts  of  service  as  you 
choose. 

But  this  being  a  proviso  under  the  law  of  jubilee,  the  refer- 
ence naturally  is  to  contracts  of  service  until  the  year  of  jubi- 
lee. It  might  possibly  have  been  argued  or  imagined,  from 
such  laws  as  that  in  Deuteronomy,  xxiii.  15,  16,  concerning 
servants  that  had  escaped  from  their  masters,  that  it  was  not 
permitted  to  take  the  heathen  servants  for  apprentices,  or  to 
put  them  under  contract  until  the  year  of  jubilee.  This  law 
gives  such  a  permission.  It  can  not  mean  that  your  men- 
servants  and  your  maid-servants  thus  legally  bound,  shall  be 
only  of  the  heathen;  for  the  preceding  clause  is  an  enact- 
ment respecting  the  treatment  of  the  Hebrew  servants  so 
bound  ;  nor  is  it  imperative,  as  if  it  had  been  said,  "  Of  them 
only,  ye  shall  buy  bondmen  and  bondmaids,"  or,  "Ye  shall 
have  your  bondmen  and  bondmaids  (using  our  version)  only 
from  the  heathen."  But  the  statute  is  permissive — ye  may  ; 
it  is  allowed  you  by  law  to  make  what  contracts  of  service 
you  please,  with  servants  from  the  heathen,  or  the  nations 
round  about  you,  limited  only  by  the  law  of  jubilee. 

Now,  that  this  is  tilt)  meaning  of  this  clause,  is  rendered 
somewhat  clearer  by  the  Septuagint  translation  of  this  44th 
verse :  Kal  iraig  Kal  mzidiOKr]  oooi  dv  yivwrai  ooi,  dnb  ruv 
&v  oooi  KVK)(.(I)  aov  elolv  an'  avr&v  KTqoeode  dovkov  Kal 
,  literally,  "  And  servant,  and  maid-servant,  as  many  as 
there  may  be  to  you  from  the  nations  round  about  you,  from 
them  shall  you  procure  bondman  and  bondwoman."  We  use 
the  words  bondman  and  bondwoman,  not  because  Sovhov,  and 
dovA^v,  necessarily  mean  that  and  that  only,  but  to  preserve 
the  contrast  manifest  iu  the  Septuagint  translation  of  this 
verse.  Now  it  seems  clear  that  the  Septuagint  translators 
have  conveyed  the  literal  construction  of  the  Hebrew,  except 
only  in  the  use  of  these  latter  words,  more  truly  than  our 
English  translators.  But  we  do  not  insist  upon  this,  as  if  it 
were  in  the  least  degree  essential  to  the  argument ;  for  it 


294:  MANNER   OF   OBTAINING  SEEVANTS. 

makes  very  little  difference  whether  the  law  says,  "  Ye  may 
procure  from  the  nations  round  about  you,  servants  and  men- 
servants,"  or,  "  Ye  may  procure  from  as  many  servants  as  may 
come  to  your  country  from  the  nations,  your  men-servants  and 
maid-servants."  The  contract  in  either  case  was  of  voluntary 
service,  and  not  involuntary  servitude  or  slavery. 

This  law  gave  no  Hebrew  citizen  the  power  or  the  privilege 
(even  if  it  could  have  been  considered  a  privilege,  which  it 
was  not),  of  going  forth  into  a  heathen  country  and  buying 
slaves,  or  of  laying  hold  on  any  heathen  servants  and  compell- 
ing them  to  pass  from  heathen  into  Hebrew  bondage.  But 
it  did  give  permission  to  obtain  servants,  on  a  fair  and  volun- 
tary contract,  from  among  them,  limiting,  at  the  same  time, 
the  longest  term  of  such  service  by  the  recurrence  of  the  ju- 
bilee. Such  permission  by  statute  was  not  only  expedient,  and 
for  the  sake  of  the  heathen,  benevolent,  but  circumstances 
made  it  necessary. 

MANNER   OF   OBTAINING   SEEVANTS. 

The  heathen  round  about  Judea  were  idolatrous  nations. 
Now  the  Hebrews  were  so  defended*  and  forbidden  by  law 
from  entering,  with  the  Canaanitish  tribes  especially,  into  any 
treaties  of  fellowship  and  commerce,  of  relationship  and  inter- 
course, socially  or  otherwise,  that  there  seemed  a  necessity 
of  inserting  this  article  in  regard  to  servants,  as  an  exception. 
The  Hebrews  might  obtain  servants  of  the  heathen,  might 
employ  them  as  servants  of  all  work,  and  by  the  longest  con- 
tract. They  were  thus  prepared  for  freedom,  and  made  free. 
But  as  to  making  slaves  of  them,  there  could  be  no  such  thing; 
there  was  no  such  sufferance  or  permission.  There  were  no 
slave-marts  in  Israel,  nor  any  slave-traders,  nor  slave-procur- 
ers, nor  go-betweens  of  traffic  in  human  flesh.  The  land  of 
Canaan  itself  was  given  to  the  Hebrews  for  a  possession,  but 
never  the  inhabitants,  nor  the  inhabitants  of  heathen  nations 
round  about  them. 


HEATHEN   NEVER   GIVEN   FOR   SLAVES.  295 

How  then  should  Hebrew  householders  or  families  get 
possession  of  heathen  servants  as  slaves  ?  Who,  at  liberty  to 
choose,  would  bind  himself  and  his  posterity  to  interminable 
slavery  ?  Even  supposing  it  possible  for  Hebrew  masters  to 
make  such  a  foray  into  a  heathen  neighborhood,  and  bind  a 
heathen  bondman  as  their  slave,  and  bring  him  into  Judea  for 
that  purpose ;  at  the  moment  of  his  transfer  into  Judea,  he 
came  under  all  the  protective  and  liberating  provisions  of 
the  Hebrew  law ;  he  was  encircled  with  the  safeguards  and 
privileges  of  religion,  and  was  brought  into  the  household 
and  congregation  of  the  Lord-;  he  could  flee  from  an  unjust 
master ;  and  no  tribe,  city,  or  house  in  Judea  was  permitted 
to  arrest  or  bring  him  back  as  a  fugitive,  or  to  oppress  him, 
but  all  were  commanded  to  give  him  shelter  and  to  protect 
his  rights. 

The  whole  body  of  the  Hebrew  laws,  as  we  have  examined 
them,  demonstrates  the  impossibility  of  importing  slavery  into 
Judea  from  the  heathen  nations  round  about  the  Hebrews. 
It  is  monstrous  to  attempt  to  put  such  a  construction  as  the 
establishment  of  perpetual  bondage  upon  the  clause  in  the  law 
of  jubilee  under  consideration.  The  respective  position  of  the 
Jews  and  the  nations  round  about  them,  renders  this  construc- 
tion impossible.  But  the  language  itself  forbids  it.  It  is  not 
said,  "  The  heathen  are  given  to  you  for  slaves,  and  ye  may 
take  them  and  make  bondmen  of  them ;"  which  is  the  con- 
struction put  by  the  advocates  and  defenders  of  slavery  upon 
this  passage;  but,  "Ye  may  procure  for  yourselves  -servants, 
from  among  the  servants  that  may  be  with  you  from  the  na- 
tions round  about  you,"  ;spp  cn»,  from  them  ye  may  obtain, 
not,  them  ye  may  take.  If  the  word  be  translated  purchase^ 
or  buy,  then,  as  we  have  clearly  demonstrated,  it  means  no 
more  than  an  equivalent  paid  for  services  to  be  rendered  dur- 
ing a  period  specified  in  the  contract.  Nothing  more  than 
this  can  possibly  be  drawn  from  this  clause. 


296  EIGHTS    OF   THE   CHILDREN   OF   STRANGERS. 


CLAUSE  THIRD,   OF   PERSONAL   LIBERTY. 

We  pass  then  to  the  third  clause,  contained  in  the  45th 
and  46th  verses,  in  our  common  version  rendered  as  follows : 
"  Moreover,  of  the  children  of  the  strangers  that  do  sojourn 
among  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy,  and  of  their  families  that 
are  with  you,  which  they  begat  in  your  land  ;  and  they  shall 
be  your  possession.  And  ye  shall  take  them  as  an  inheritance 
for  your  children  after  you,  to  inherit  them  for  a  possession ; 
they  shall  be  your  bondmen  for  ever."  Here  this  clause,  in 
the  original,  stops,  and  the  next  passes  to  a  wholly  different 
subject,  the  treatment  of  Hebrew  servants  bound  to  service 
till  the  year  of  jubilee.  But  in  our  version  this  clause  is  made 
to  take  up  what  seems,  more  accurately,  to  be  a  part  of  the 
next,  and  verse  46  is  completed  with  the  following  paragraph, 
as  if  it  belonged  to  the  preceding  and  not  the  succeeding 
clause :  "  But  over  your  brethren,  the  children  of  Israel,  ye 
shall  not  rule  one  over  another  with  rigor."  There  is  nothing 
in  the  construction  that  forbids  this  connection,  but  the  con- 
text, as  we  shall  see,  would  seem  rather  to  appropriate  this  to 
the  next  following  clause. 

The  class  here  marked  as  the  recruiting  clas»  for  servants  for 
the  Hebrews,  consists  of  the  children  of  descendants  of  sojourn- 
ing strangers,  and  of  their  families  begotten  in  Judea.  The 
Hebrews  might  obtain  of  them  servants,  whose  service  was 
purchased  on  such  a  contract  that,  up  to  the  year  of  jubilee,  it 
lasted  from  generation  to  generation  as  a  fixture  of  the  house- 
hold ;  the  claim  upon  such  service,  by  the  original  agreement 
or  terms  of  purchase,  constituted  a  possession  and  inheritance, 
from  the  parents  who  had  made  the  bargain  to  the  children 
for  whom,  until  the  jubilee,  it  was  made.  That  this  was  a  vol- 
untary contract  on  the  part  of  the  servants,  and  that  it  did 
not  and  could  not  involve  any  approximation  to  what  we 
call  slavery,  nor  constitute  them  bondmen,  an  examination  of 
their  condition  by  law,  as  a  class  of  inhabitants,  will  clearly  show. 


EIGHTS   OF   HEATHEN   FAMILIES.  297 

RECRUITING   CLASSES   FOR   SERVANTS. 

Two  classes  are  clearly  defined  in  the  two  clauses  of  the 
law  now  under  consideration,  the  second  clause  contained  in 
verse  44,  and  the  third  clause  in  verses  45  and  46.  The  first 
class  was  of  the  nations  surrounding  the  Hebrew  territory,  in 
our  translation,  the  heathen  round  about.  But  because  they 
were  heathen,  they  were  not  therefore  the  selected  and  ap- 
pointed objects  and  subjects  of  oppression ;  the  Hebrews  were 
not,  on  that  account,  at  liberty  to  treat  them  with  injustice 
and  cruelty,  or  to  make  them  articles  of  merchandise.  Nay, 
they  were  commanded  to  treat  them  kindly.  The  fact  that 
many  of  them  were  hired  servants,  proves  incontestably  that 
they  were  never  given  to  the  Hebrews  as  slaves,  and  that  no 
Hebrew  master  could  go  forth  and  purchase  any  of  them  as 
such.  They  could  not  possibly  be  bought  without  their  own 
consent ;  and,  in  thus  selling  their  services,  they  could  make 
their  own  terms  of  contract.  The  44th  verse  can  not  pos- 
sibly mean  a  purchase  of  slaves  from  third  parties,  but  only 
the  purchase  of  the  labor  of  free  servants,  that  is,  the  acqui- 
sition of  service  rendered  by  voluntary  contract,  for  a  specified 
consideration  paid  to  the  person  thus  selling  his  services  for  a 
particular  time.  There  is  no  definition  of  the  time.  There  is 
no  qualification  in  this  clause  giving  the  right  to  hold  heathen 
servants  in  any  longer  term  of  bondage  or  servitude  than  He- 
brew servants ;  there  is  no  permission  of  this  kind  in  regard 
to  the  heathen  that  were  round  about  them,  there  is  no  line  of 
distinction,  making  slaves  of  the  heathen,  and  free  servants  of 
the  Hebrews. 

How  could  there  be  ?  The  fugitive  slaves  from  heathen 
masters  were  free  by  Hebrew  law,  the  moment  they  touched 
the  Hebrew  soil.  The  heathen  households,  or  families  that 
remained  among  the  Hebrews,  or  came  over  into  their  land, 
were  to  be  received  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord,  after 
the  process  of  an  appointed  naturalization  law,  and,  when  so 

13* 


298  NO   SLAVE   MART   POSSIBLE. 

received,  were  in  every  respect  oil  a  footing  of  equality  with 
the  natives  as  to  freedom  and  religious  privileges.  How  then 
could  such  families,  or  their  servants,  be  a  possession  of  slaves  ? 
The  children  begotten  of  the  Edomites  and  Egyptians,  for  ex- 
ample, were  to  enter  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord  in  the 
third  generation. 

The  children  of  Jarha,  the  Egyptian,  the  servant  of  Sheshan 
a  Hebrew,  were  immediately  reckoned  in  the  course  of  She- 
shan's  genealogy,  1  Chronicles,  ii.  34,  35.  Ruth,  the  Moabit- 
ess,  was  immediately  received  as  one  of  God's  people,  and 
Boaz  purchased  her  to  be  his  wife.  He  could  not,  because 
she  was  a  heathen,  have  taken  her  to  be  his  slave.  Nor  could 
any  heathen  families,  coming  into  the  Hebrew  country,  engage 
in  a  slave-traffic,  or  set  up  a  mart  for  the  supply  of  slaves  to 
the  Hebrews.  In  the  Hebrew  land  they  could  no  longer  have 
slaves  of  their  own  ;  for  by  the  law  of  God,  as  plain  and  incon- 
trovertible as  any  of  the  ten  commandments  thundered  upon 
Sinai,  a  heathen  slave  was  free,  if  he  chose  to  quit  his  master  : 
no  master  could  retain  him  a  moment,  but  by  his  own  con- 
sent. Much  less,  then,  could  such  families  have  had  slaves  for 
sale.  The  Hebrews  could  have  no  heathen  servant,  but  by 
contract  with  the  servants  themselves ;  and  that  renders  what 
we  call  slavery  impossible. 

IMPOSSIBLE  TO   MAKE   THEM   SLAVES. 

But  if  this  were  impossible  in  regard  to  servants  coming 
to  the  Hebrews  from  the  heathen  round  about  Judea,  much 
more  in  regard  to  the  second  class,  namely,  the  children  and 
families  of  the  stranger  sojourning  in  Israel,  and  their  poster- 
ity. This  sojourning  was  a  voluntary  and  an  honorable  thing. 
And  their  condition  was  better  ascertained,  defined,  and  se- 
cured than  that  of  the  class  named  in  verse  44.  They  were 
families  of  proselytes.  They  could  not  be  tolerated  in  the 
country  at  all,  except  on  condition  of  renouncing  their  idola- 
try, and  entering  into  covenant  to  keep  the  law  of  God.  They 


NO   OPPRESSION   OF   THE   STKANGEE.  299 

had  entered  iuto  the  congregation  of  the  Lord,  or  would  have 
done  so  before  a  single  jubilee  could  be  half  way  in  progress. 
In  regard  to  this  class,  as  also  the  other,  express  laws  were 
passed  in  their  favor,  protecting  and  defending  them.  Their 
rights  were  guaranteed  by  statute.  They  were  as  free  as  the 
Hebrews,  and  were  to  be  treated  as  freemen.  They  had  the 
same  appeal  to  the  laws,  and  the  judges  were  commanded, 
Deuteronomy,  i.  16  :  "  Hear  the  causes  between  your  breth- 
ren, and  judge  righteously  between  man  and  his  brother,  and 
the  stranger  that  is  with  him,"  tthN-~ pa  Sis  -pM  iirw—psi,  between 
man,  and  his  brother,  and  his  stranger.  They  entered  into 
the  same  covenant  with  God  at  the  outset,  Deuteronomy,  xxix. 
10-13  :  "All  the  men  of  Israel,  your  little  ones,  your  wives, 
and  thy  stranger  (tpi}  )  that  is  in  thy  camp,  from  the  hewer 
of  thy  wood  unto  the  drawer  of  thy  water,  that  thou  should- 
est  enter  into  covenant,"  etc., — "  that  he  may  establish  thee  for 
a  people  unto  himself."  And  again,  Deuteronomy,  xxxi.  12, 
13  :  "  Gather  the  people,  men,  women,  and  children,  and  thy 
stranger  (tp.Ai.),  that  is  within  thy  gates,  that  they,  and  their 
children  may  hear,  and  learn,  and  fear." 

The  Sabbath,  and  all  the  many  and  joyful  religious  festivals, 
with  all  the  privileges  of  the  people  of  God  in  them,  were 
theirs  to  observe  and  enjoy.  The  greatest  and  most  careful 
benevolence  was  enjoined  toward  them.  "Thou  shalt  neither 
vex  a  stranger  nor  oppress  him,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the 
land  of  Egypt,"  Exodus,  xxii.  21.  "  Cursed  be  he  that  per- 
verteth  the  judgment  of  the  stranger,"  was  one  among  the 
twelve  curses,  Deuteronomy,  xxvii.  19.  In  the  very  chapter 
next  preceding  this  chapter  of  the  law  of  jubilee,  it  is  enacted, 
that  "  ye  shall  have  one  manner  of  law,  as  well  for  the 
stranger  as  for  one  of  your  own  country ;  for  I  am  the  Lord 
your  God,"  Leviticus,  xxiv.  22.  These  injunctions  were  en- 
forced in  various  forms,  and  with  much  emphasis  and  repeti- 
tion. "The  Lord  your  God  loveth  the  stranger;  love  ye 
therefore  the  stranger,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of 


300  LOVE  HIM:  AS  THYSELF. 

Egypt,"  Deuteronomy,  x.  17,  18,  19.  "Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
execute  ye  judgment  and  righteousness,  and  deliver  the 
spoiled  out  of  the  hand  of  the  oppressor,  and  do  no  wrong,  do 
no  violence  to  the  stranger,"  Jeremiah,  xxii.  3.  If,  in  defiance 
of  these  statutes  and  precepts,  they  had  attempted  to  bring 
the  strangers  into  subjection  as  slaves  and  articles  of  property, 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  heathen,  it  would  have  been  re- 
garded as  man-stealing,  and  any  single  case  of  such  crime 
would  have  been  punished  with  death. 

OPPRESSION    OF   THE   STRANGER   FORBIDDEN". 

In  Isaiah,  Ixvi.  6,  V,  the  sons  of  the  stranger  are  brought 
under  a  special  covenant  of  blessing  from  Jehovah,  to  make 
them  joyful  in  his  house  of  prayer — "the  sons  of  the  stranger, 
that  join  themselves  to  the  Lord,  to  serve  him,  and  to  love 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  to  be  his  servants."  Moreover,  in 
the  last  indictment  of  God  against  the  Hebrews,  in  which 
Ezekiel  just  before  the  captivity  of  Judah  and  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  enumerated  the  reasons  why  God  finally  poured 
out  his  wrath  upon  them,  the  last  crime  mentioned,  as  if  it 
were  the'  one  that  filled  up  the  measure  of  their  iniquities, 
was  the  oppression  of  the  stranger,  Ezekiel,  xxii.  29.  "  The 
people  of  the  land  have  used  oppression,  and  exercised  rob- 
bery, and  have  vexed  the  poor  and  needy,  yea,  they  have  op- 
pressed the  stranger  wrongfully '."  Also,  in  the  prophecy  of 
Zechariah,  after  the  captivity  and  destruction  of  the  city,  "  the 
word  of  the  Lord  came  to  all  the  people  of  the  land,"  refer- 
ring to  God's  former  commands,  "  to  execute  true  judgment, 
and  show  mercy,  and  oppress  not  the  stranger •,"  and  declaring 
that  for  such  oppression,  and  for  not  executing  judgment  and 
mercy,  God  had  "  scattered  them  as  with  a  whirlwind  among 
the  nations,"  Zechariah,  vii.  9, 10, 14.  Finally,  in  the  nineteenth 
chapter  of  Leviticus,  the  same  chapter  that  contains  the  pre- 
cept, thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,  there  stands  out 
this  conclusive,  emphatic,  comprehensive  law :  "  If  a  stranger 


STRANGERS   ARE   SOJOURNERS.  301 

sojourn  with  you  in  your  land,  ye  shall  not  oppress  him  ;  but 
the  stranger  that  dwelleth  with  you  shall  be  unto  you  as  one 
born  amongst  you  ;  and  thou  shalt  love  him  as  thyself,  for  ye 
were  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt.  I  am  the  Lord  your 
God,"  Leviticus,  xix  34. 

Now  it  is  incredible,  impossible,  that  this  very  class  of  per- 
sons, thus  protected  and  favored  of  God,  and  commended  to 
the  favor  and  love  of  the  Hebrew  people,  could  have  been  at 
the  same  time  selected  as  the  subjects  of  bondage,  and  ap- 
pointed as  a  class  on  whom  the  Hebrew  masters  might  exer- 
cise the  tyranny  of  perpetual  slavery.  It  is  impossible  that 
they  could  have  been  doomed  and  treated  as  an  inheritance 
of  human  chattels.  Yet  this  is  the  argument,  and  this  the 
monstrous  conclusion  of  those  who  would  restrict  the  applica- 
tion of  the  free  law  of  the  jubilee  to  persons  of  Hebrew  birth, 
and  who  contend  that  in  the  45th  and  46th  verses  of  this 
chapter,  there  is  a  wholesale  consignment  of  the  heathen  to 
the  Hebrews  as  their  chattels,  their  slaves. 

Let  us  examine  the  Hebrew  of  this  clause.  The  first  phrase 
essential  to  be  marked,  is  the  designation  of  the  class  from 
whom  servants  may  be  taken,  of  the  children  of  the  strangers 
that  do  sojourn  among  you,  &5»»  B'I-IMJ  d-qttrtntj  issto.  The 
same  expression  is  used  in  Leviticus,  xxv.  23 :  Ye  are  stran- 
gers and  sojourners  with  me,  n^c'irn  DI-U.  Job  uses  a  word 
derived  from  the  same  verb,  nw,  from  which  this  noun,  d^a. 
is  derived,  to  signify  a  dweller  in  the  house :  Tfiey  that  dwell 
in  my  house,  and  my  maids,  innate  iro a  -na,  Job,  xix.  15.  So 
in  Exodus,  iii.  22  :  Every  woman  shall  borrow  of  her  that  so- 
journeth  in  her  house,  fcrna  rnwa.  So  also  in  Genesis,  xxiii.  4, 
the  words  ->a,  stranger,  and  aie'in,  sojourner,  are  almost  synony- 
mous. They  arp  thus  use/1,  Psalm  xxxix.,  "  I  am  a  stranger 
and  a  sojourner  with  thee,"  ayipijpss  •"S'aj  is.  The  same  words 
are  used,  Leviticus,  xxv.  47,  in  the  next  clause  of  the  law 
under  consideration,  if  a  sojourner  or  stranger,  ncTrn  na, 
(stranger  and  sojourner).  One  might  be  merely  a  stranger 


302  NOT  FAMILIES   IN  BONDAGE. 

passing  through  the  land,  but  not  a  sojourner,  because  not 
making  any  stay  in  the  land  ;  but  the  sojournevs,  settling  in 
the  country,  were  called  the  strangers  of  the  land,  and  their 
children  are  the  class  designated  in  the  verse  before  us,  their 
descendants  generally. 

Of  them  shall  ye  buy,  and  of  their  families  that  are  with 
you,  which  they  begat  in  your  land.  This  is  an  additional  de- 
scription. Their  families  that  are  with  you,  6*»»'  "list*  tphsi-tt, 
i.  e.,  separate  and  independent  families,  living  by  themselves, 
settled  in  the  land  under  protection  of  its  laws,  and  in  the 
enjoyment  of  its  privileges;  not  families  in  bondage,  nor  in 
any  way  under  tribute,  but  free  families,  under  protection  of 
Jehovah.  Of  these,  begotten  in  the  land,  and  consequently 
citizens,  proselytes,  covenanters,  with  all  the  Hebrews,  a  nat- 
uralized part  and  parcel  of  the  nation,  might  the  Hebrews 
buy,  (MJ?P  is  the  word  used),  obtain,  by  purchasing  their  serv- 
ices, servants  for  themselves,  as  in  the  verse  preceding,  -rss, 
wcN)  the  serving  man  and  serving  woman,  the  servant  and 
maid-servant. 

MEANING   OF   THE   PHRASE,  THEY  SHALL   BE   TOUK   POSSESSION. 

Then  it  is  added,  and  they  shall  be  your  possession,  otV  ^jr; 
n?r??£»  they  shall  be  to  you  for  a  possession  ;  that  is,  the  serv- 
ants so  obtained  by  purchase  of  their  services  on  contract  for 
time,  shall  be  your  possession ;  not  the  families,  not  the  race 
of  sojourners,  but  such  of  the  children  or  descendants  of  the 
sojourners,  or  members  of  their  families,  as  might  enter  into 
such  contract  of  service  for  money ;  as,  in  Ezekiel,  xliv.  28, 
God  says  of  himself,  that  he  is  the  possession  of  the  priests,  the 
Levites,  drshx  ^i.s,  I  am  their  possession.  Still  it  is  not  abso- 
lute; they  shall  be  to  you  for  a  possession,,  not  absolutely 
your  possession.  Nor  is  it  any  stronger  than  where  it  is  said 
in  Exodus,  xxi.  21,  of  the  servant  purchased,  that  is,  appren- 
ticed according  to  the  legal  contract,  for  money  paid  before- 
hand to  the  servant  for  his  services,  that  he  is  his  master's 


SERVICE   A   POSSESSION",    NOT   SERVANTS.  303 

money,  for  he  is  his  money,  «*i  bt&s  is.  He  might  be  a  He- 
brew servant,  and  yet  be  called,  in  this  sense,  his  master's 
money,  his  master's  possession,  his  services  belonging  to  his 
master  for  so  long  a  time  as  might  have  been  specified  in  the 
terms  of  the  contract.  But  the  servant  himself  was  never,  and 
could  not  be,  the  property  of  the  master,  though  he  might  be 
bound  for  a  term  of  service,  extending  from  master  to  son,  as 
would  be  the  case,  if  bound  until  the  jubilee.  It  would  be  re- 
garded in  the  light  of  a  long  lease,  conveyed  for  an  equivalent, 
in  consideration  of  which,  though  the  servant  making  the  con- 
tract was  not  the  master's  property,  yet  the  service,  promised 
and  paid  for  was.  And  this  claim,  up  to  its  legal  expiration, 
would  with  propriety  be  spoken  of,  be  described,  as  convey- 
able  from  the  master  to  his  children,  for  any  period  within  the 
limit  of  its  legal  conclusion  at  the  jubilee.  If  the  master  who 
made  the  contract  with  the  servant  died,  while  any  part  of 
the  contract  remained  unfulfilled,  the  claim  belonged  as  an  in- 
heritance, or  family  possession,  to  his  children  after  him. 

For  example,  if,  during  the  first  year  after  the  year  of  ju- 
bilee, when  many  new  contracts  would  be  made,  and  house- 
holders would  be  looking  out  for  servants  on  the  most  profit- 
able terms,  a  master  could  agree  with  a  servant,  could  hire  or 
apprentice  him,  could  buy  him,  as  the  Hebrew  phrase  is  ordi- 
narly  translated,  from  a  family  of  strangers  or  sojourners,  to 
serve  in  his  household  till  the  next  jubilee,  this  would  be  an 
engagement  for  at  least  forty-seven  years.  Now  suppose  such 
a  master  to  be  of  the  age  of  fifty,  and  at  the  head  of  a  family, 
the  contract  would  bind  this  servant,  in  effect,  as  a  servant  to 
the  children  of  the  household ;  and  supposing  the  master  to 
die  at  the  age  of  seventy-five,  the  claim  upon  his  services 
would  descend  as  a  possession,  as  an  inheritance  to  the  chil- 
dren for  some  twenty-two  years  longer.  The  servant  might 
be  said  to  belong  to  the  family  still,  for  that  period  of  the  un- 
fulfilled engagement.  It  was  an  engagement  which  had  bound 
the  servant,  in  Hebrew  phrase,  for  ever. 


304  MEANING   OF  THE  FOR  EVER-CONTRACT. 

But  this  phrase,  in  respect  to  legal  servitude,  is  absolutely 
and  beyond  dispute,  demonstrated  to  mean  a  period  no  longer 
than  to  the  jubilee.  Two  prominent  instances,  in  the  case  of 
Hebrew  servants,  put  this  beyond  possibility  of  controversy, 
showing  that  the  for  eyer-contract,  &Vs^,  had  always  its  termi- 
nation, by  the  law  of  jubilee,  at  that  period ;  nor  could  any 
contract  override  that  law ;  nor  was  there  ever  a  pretense,  be- 
cause the  servant  was  bound  to  his  master,  technically,  for 
ever,  that  therefore  he  was  bound  to  him  beyond  the  jubilee, 
or  was  not  to  be  free  at  the  coming  of  the  jubilee.  One  of 
these  cases  is  that  of  the  Hebrew  servant  renewing  his  con- 
tract with  his  master  to  the  longest  period,  Exodus,  xxi.  6 : 
His  master  shall  bore  his  ear  through  with  an  awl,  and  he  shall 
serve  him  for  ever,  sVb»y  'lay  5.  But  at  the  jubilee,  on  the  sound 
of  the  trumpet,  he  was  free,  and  must  return  to  his  own  fam- 
ily, he  and  his  children  with  him. 

The  second  instance  of  this  illustration  of  the  usage  and 
meaning  of  the  word  and  the  law,  is  in  Deuteronomy,  xv.  17, 
comprehending  the  Hebrew  men-servants  and  maid-servants 
under  the  same  rule.  At  his  own  agreement  and  desire,  the 
Hebrew  servant  has  his  ear  bored,  and  is  bound  until  the  long- 
est period  ever  admitted  by  the  law :  And  he  shall  be  thy  serv~ 
ant  for  ever,  s^  ia?  -{V  f»n\  And  also  unto  thy  maid-servant 
thou  shalt  do  likewise.  Nevertheless,  at  the  jubilee  they  were 
to  be  free  ;  this  contract,  which  was  said  to  be  for  ever,  termi- 
nated by  a  law  that  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole  system 
of  Hebrew  jurisprudence  and  polity,  at  the  jubilee;  it  could 
not  be  made  to  run  across  that  limit ;  no  one  could  be  held  in 
servitude,  no  matter  what  were  the  terms  of  his  contract,  be- 
yond that  illustrious  year  of  liberty. 

A  similar  usage  and  illustration  are  found  in  1  Samuel,  xxvii. 
12:  "And  Achish  believed  David,  saving,  He  hath  made  his 
people  Israel  utterly  to  abhor  him ;  therefore  he  shall  be  my 
servant  for  ever,  tty*  ia.yV  ">V.  n^l,  he  shall  be  to  me  for  a  serv- 
ant for  ever." 


CONTRACT   WITH   LEVIATHAN.  305 

In  the  book  of  Job  there  is  another  illustration,  xl.  28 — in 
our  translation,  xli.  4 :  "  Will  he  make  a  covenant  with  thee  ? 
wilt  thou  take  him  for  a  servant  for  ever  ?"  The  phraseology 
here  is  strikingly  illustrative ;  for  it  seems  to  be  drawn  from 
the  very  contract  made  with  servants  who  were  willing  to 
enter  into  the  longest  apprenticeship,  and  the  manner  of  seal- 
ing it,  that  is,  by  boring  the  ear  of  the  voluntary  bondman. 
"  Can  any  man  bore  the  nose  of  leviathan  with  a  gin,  and  take 
him  in  his  sight  ?  Canst  thou  bore  his  jaw  through  with  a 
thorn  ?  Will  he  speak  soft  words  unto  thee  ?  Will  he  make 
a  covenant  with  thee,  JJM*  h^s  rns^n  ?  Wilt  thou  take  him 
for  a  servant  for  ever,  oV-s  -rasV  V<S^P  ?"  It  is  to  be  marked 
that  the  word  here  translated  take,  is  a  synonyme  of  that  for 
purchasing  or  buying  the  contract  with  a  servant:  "Wilt 
thou  buy  him  for  a  servant  for  ever  ?"  In  buying  a  servant, 
the  covenant  or  contract  was  made  with  himself,  not  with  a 
third  party.  Hence  the  condition  here  referred  to,  for  the 
possibility  of  taking  leviathan  for  a  servant — "  will  he  enter 
into  covenant  with  thee  ?"  Thou  canst  take  him  for  thy  serv- 
ant in  no  other  way.  Will  he  agree  with  thee  to  be  thine,  t^s, 
thy  bounden  servant  of  all  work,  for  thyself  and  thy  family  ? 
Wilt  thou  bind  him  for  thy  maidens  ?  Will  he  consent  to  be 
a  fixture  in  thine  household  ? 

COMPLETENESS   OF   THE   DEMONSTRATION. 

Nothing  is  requisite,  nothing  needed,  to  strengthen  this  dem- 
onstration. It  is  as  clear  as  the  noon  that  the  longest  period 
of  servitude  among  the  Hebrews  was  entered  into  by  volun- 
tary contract,  and  was  terminated  by  the  jubilee.  Hebrew 
servants  were  apprenticed  for  ever,  and  so  were  a  possession, 
an  inheritance,  until  the  jubilee,  but  never  slaves.  The  chil- 
dren of  strangers  and  sojourners,  in  like  manner,  were  appren- 
ticed for  ever  ;  and  in  like  manner  were  a  possession,  but  never 
slaves.  With  Hebrew  servants  the  long  term  was  the  excep- 


306  THE   INHERITANCE   FOR   CHILDREN. 

tion,  and  the  ordinary  term  was  six  years  ;  and  even  during 
the  long  term,  they  were  to  be  treated  as  hired  servants, 
rather  than  as  apprentices,  though  they  were  legally  bound. 
"With  servants  from  the  heathen,  or  from  the  families  of 
strangers,  the  long  term  of  apprenticeship  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  ordinary  term,  and  the  six  years,  or  less,  the  excep- 
tion ;  and  during  the  long  term  there  was  no  such  legal  pro- 
visions for  them  as  for  the  Hebrews,  requiring  that  they  should 
be  treated  as  hired  servants.  But  the  advent  of  the  jubilee 
put  an  end  to  both  periods  and  both  kinds  of  servitude,  and  all 
were  free,  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land.  We  shall  advert  to 
some  of  the  reasons  for  the  difference  that  was  made  between 
the  Hebrew  servants  and  those  from  the  families  of  sojoui-ners, 
or  of  proselytes,  or  from  the  heathen.  But  we  are  now  pre- 
pared to  consider  the  46th  verse,  the  remainder  of  the  third 
clause  of  the  jubilee-enactment,  in  its  true  meaning.  In  our 
version  it  runs  thus  :  And  ye  shall  take  them  as  an  inherit- 
ance for  your  children  after  you,  to  inherit  a  possession:  they 
shall  be  your  bondmen  for  ever. 

Taking  the  Hebrew,  phrase  by  phrase,  it  is  as  follows :  And 
ye  shall  take  them  as  an  inheritance,  erst  ej-iVhrrnx  The  verb 
is  Hithpael  of  ^m,  to  receive,  or  to  inherit,  and  with  ^  following 
it,  is  rather  transitive  than  active ;  so  that  instead  of  meaning, 
"  Ye  shall  take  them  for  an  inheritance,"  it  rather  means, 
"  Ye  shall  leave  them  behind  as  an  inheritance,"  Ye  shall  be- 
queath them  as  an  inheritance ;  or,  Ye  shall  possess  them  to 
be  bequeathed.  Gesenius  renders  the  phrase  thus :  Eosgue 
possidebitis  relinquendos  filiis  vestris  post  vos,  Ye  shall  pos- 
sess them  to  be  left  to  your  children  after  you — to  your  chil- 
dren after  you,  to  inherit  a  possession  ;  not  them  for  a  posses- 
sion, but,  simply,  to  inherit  a  possession ;  that  is,  the  right 
to  their  services  during  the  legal,  contracted  period.  The 
Hebrew  phrase  is,  rwhs  ri^rfe,  to  occupy  a  possession,  to  re- 
ceive as  heir  a  possession.  Compare  Genesis,  xv.  3,4;  xxi. 
10;  Jeremiah,  xlix.  1,  2 ;  Numbers,  xxvii.  11 ;  xxxvi.  8. 


CONTRACTS    OF   NATURALIZATION.  307 

The  next  phrase,  translated,  they  shall  be  your  bondmen  for 
ever,  contains  no  word  f<#  "  bondmen,"  but  is  as  follows  in  the 
original :  rthsri  ens  cVy>,/br  ever  on  them  ye  shall  lay  service, 
or  from  them  ye  shall  take  service  ;  or,  as  in  similar  passages 
it  is  sometimes  translated,  shall  serve  yourselves  of  them. 
Compare  Jeremiah,  xxx.  8;  xxv.  14;  xxii.  13.  In  this  last 
passage  in  Jeremiah,  this  form  of  phraseology  is  applied  to 
the  serving  one's  self  of  his  neighbor  without  wages.  And 
BO,  Exodus,  i.  14,  all  their  services  which  they  served  upon 
them,  ero  rtas — its  ernaj-Vs.  The  same  phrase  would  be  ap- 
plied to  designate  the  employment  of  a  Hebrew  servant,  the 
ordinary  six  years'  servant,  so  that  there  is  no  meaning  of  a 
bondman,  or  of  bond-service,  connected  with  it.  It  means,  "  Ye 
may  have  them  for  your  servants  for  ever ;"  that  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  the  longest  permissible  and  legal  time  of  contract. 

Or,  the  qualifying  epithet  of  duration  may  belong  to  the 
previous  phrase,  to  inherit  a  possession  for  ever ;  and  then  the 
phrase  of  service  would  stand  alone,  of  them  ye  shall  serve 
yourselves.  It  makes  little  or  no  difference  with  whichsoever 
member  the  word  of  duration,  cV-,»,  be  coupled.  Whether  ap- 
plied to  the  individuals,  as  a  class,  or  to  the  service  contracted 
for,  as  a  possession,  it  is  clearly  limited  by  the  statute  itself,  as 
in  Deuteronomy,  xv.  17,  and  in  Exodus,  xxi.  6.  It  is  simply 
the  permission  to  engage,  and  keep  until  the  jubilee,  servants 
from  among  the  heathen  and  from  the  families  of  sojourn ers  in 
the  land.  Such  contracts  should  be  binding  in  law,  and  in  fact 
they  served  to  incorporate  the  strangers  and  sojourners  more 
immediately  and  closely  with  the  people,  and  constituted  a 
process  of  naturalization  eminently  wise  and  favorable,  consid- 
ering the  character  and  habits  which  those  born  and  bred  in 
heathenism,  and  but  recently  come  to  sojourn  in  the  Hebrew 
country,  must  have  assumed.  This  would  seem  to  be  one  of 
the  reasons  for  the  difference  put  by  law  between  the  nature 
and  extent  of  the  lease  by  which  Hebrew  servants  might  be 
hired,  and  that  by  which  the  heathen  might  be  bound ;  the 


308  CONTRACT'S   WITH   SERVANTS   THEMSELVES. 

former  being  by  law  always  treated  as  hired  servants,  even 
when  bound  till  the  jubilee,  but  the* latter  subjected  accord- 
ing to  the  letter  of  the  contract. 

RESULTANT  POINTS   CONCLUSIVE   AND   DEMONSTRATIVE. 

Two  points  in  this  examination  deserve  a  most  emphatic  re- 
gard. First,  the  unfortunate,  unauthorized  introduction  of  the 
word  bondmen  in  our  English  translation,  without  any  word 
corresponding  to  it  in  the  original,  can  not  but  lead  the  mere 
English  reader  to  a  false  conclusion.  This  is  one  of  the  sources 
of  error  on  this  subject.  The  difference  between  the  phrases, 
they  shall  be  your  bondmen  and  of  them  ye  shall  obtain  your 
service,  or  from  them  ye  shall  serve  yourselves,  might  be  all  the 
difference  between  slavery  and  freedom.  The  phraseology  in- 
dicating slavery  produces  a  most  deplorable  falsehood  ;  and 
when  the  effect  is  to  load  a  divine  revelation  with  the  reproach 
of  a  wicked  institution,  or  to  provide  the  slaveholder  with  an 
anodyne  for  his  conscience,  preventing  a  conviction  of  the 
greatness  of  his  crime  in  holding  his  fellow-creatures  in  bond- 
age, and  the  apologists  for  slavery  with  the  argument  of  its 
being  appointed  and  sanctioned  of  God,  no  reprobation  is  suf- 
ficiently severe  for  such  perversion  of  the  word  of  God.  If  it 
be  deliberate,  the  whole  curse  at  the  close  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment comes  down  upon  the  person  who  is  guilty  of  it ;  if  it  be 
carelessness,  the  sin  is  little  less :  the  result,  every  way,  is 
beyond  measure  injurious. 

Second:  the  reference  in  Job  to  the  bargain  with  levia- 
than, as  entering  into  a  contract  or  covenant  of  service,  the 
contract  being  with  leviathan  himself,  and  not  with  any 
third  party,  supposed  to  have  any  ownership  or  authority 
for  such  a  transfer  or  sale  ;  the  contract  being  voluntary,  and 
no  supposition  of  its  being  attainable  or  customary  in  any 
other  way ;  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  illustrations  of 
truth  concerning  this  subject  in  all  the  current  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  is  the  more  forcible,  because  incidental.  It  is  like  a 


THE   CONTRACT   WITH   LEVIATHAN.  309 

clear,  transparent  window,  through  which  the  light  floods  the 
whole  apartment.  There  could  have  been  no  such  illustra- 
tion as  this  employed  concerning  slavery,  in  which  there  is  no 
bargain  even  with  the  slave;  no  agreement,  no  persuasion, 
nor  any  attempt  at  persuasion,  nor  any  need  of  it ;  but  a  bar- 
gain and  sale  over  the  head  of  the  slave,  without  any  consul- 
tation of  his  will  or  wishes ;  and  with  no  more  possibility  of  his 
interposing  any  obstacle  or  opposition  against  being  so  bound, 
so  transferred,  so  bought  and  sold,  than  if  he  were  a  stick  of 
wood  or  a  wheelbarrow ;  no  more  will  of  his  own,  no  more 
consultation  with  him  as  to  the  bargain  ;  no  more  supposition 
of  any  obstacle  or  difficulty  to  be  overcome  on  his  part  than 
if  he  were  the  skeleton  of  a  mastodon  or  a  whale,  to  be  trans- 
ferred from  Judea  to  the  British  museum. 

The  illustration  is  of  a  man  endeavoring  to  persuade  another 
to  be  his  servant,  to  enter  into  a  contract  of  service  for  the  uses 
of  his  household  ;  it  is  a  household  servant  himself,  with  whom 
the  contract  is  supposed  to  be  made,  and  not  a  slave-dealer,  or 
an  owner  or  master  of  the  man.  It  is  the  servant  himself,  who  is 
supposed  to  have  the  whole  and  sole  power  and  right  of  majc- 
ing  the  contract ;  and  the  possibility  of  referring  to  a  third 
party,  or  a  party  that  has  the  power  of  compelling  the  servant 
into  such  contract,  or  of  making  it  for  him,  or  against  his  will, 
or  without  his  voluntary  permission  and  engagement,  is  not 
mooted.  It  is  not  supposed  that  there  exists  any  such  possi- 
bility. It  is  supposed  that  the  only  mode  of  getting  a  servant 
is  by  applying  for  his  services  to  himself,  and  making  the  con- 
tract or  covenant  with  him,  persuading  him  to  enter  into  it ; 
and  if  that  persuasion  be  not  successful,  there  is  no  other  mode 
of  effecting  the  bargain,  no  power  that  can  compel  the  servant 
into  it. 

The  freedom  and  naturalness  of  this  illustration  make  it  very 
powerful ;  it  is  a  most  convincing  refutation  of  those  who  say 
that  Job  and  the  patriarchs  bought  their  household  servants 
as  property  ;  for  men  never  use  persuasion  with  an  article  of 


310  VOLUNTARY  TEXURE  OF  SERVICE. 

property,  nor  solicit  of  a  chattel  the  favor  of  entering  into  an 
agreement  of  service.  It  is  clear  and  convincing  against  the 
supposition  of  property  in  man,  showing,  most  conclusively, 
that  that  was  not  the  ground  nor  tenure  of  domestic  servi- 
tude, but  that  such  service  was  a  voluntary  thing  on  the  part 
of  the  servant ;  just  as  voluntary  with  him,  as  the  agreement 
to  take  him  for  a  servant  was  on  the  part  of  the  master.  As 
an  illustration  of  the  freedom  of  the  social  state,  and  its  sep- 
aration from  the  oppressive  despotism  of  slavery,  it  corre- 
sponds perfectly  with  every  reference  to  the  same  subject  in 
the  book  of  Job,  showing  a  domestic  constitution,  and  style 
and  spirit  of  social  equality  and  kindness,  incompatible  with 
the  existence  of  slavery,  and  not  admitting  its  supposition. 

The  language  employed  in  regard  to  this  voluntary  con- 
tract, this  persuasion  of  the  servant  himself  to  enter  into  a 
covenant  of  service,  is  similar  to  that  used  in  regard  to  Abra- 
ham's getting  his  servants,  and  the  Hebrews  generally  theirs. 
The  word  is  somewhat  different  from  that  in  Exodus,  xxi.  2,  in 
regard  to  obtaining  a  servant,  but  there  translated,  If  thou 
bytj  a  servant,  and  also  in  Ecclesiastes,  ii.  V,  I  got  me  servants 
and  maid-servants,  and  also  in  Genesis,  xvii.  23,  and  other 
places,  where  the  souls  or  servants  of  Abraham  or  others  are 
spoken  of  as  gotten  with  money,  or  bought  with  money,  that 
is,  gotten  by  the  same  persuasion  and  contract  with  the  serv- 
ants themselves  as  is  here  described  as  a  voluntary  contract 
with  the  servant  alone,  and  not  with  any  third  party.  The 
phraseology  here  used,  Wilt  thou  take  leviathan  for  a  serv- 
ant ?  will  he  make  a  covenant  of  service  with  thee  ?  might 
have  been  applied,  for  example,  to  the  contract  of  Abraham 
with  his  head  servant,  the  major  domo  of  his  house :  Wilt 
thou  take  this  Eliezer  of  Damascus  to  be  the  steward  of  thine 
house?  Will  he  enter  into  covenant  with  thee  ?  Thou  canst 
get  him  only  by  a  bargain  with  himself;  thou  canst  buy  him 
for  thy  servant  in  no  other  way  ;  only  by  persuading  him  canst 
thou  take  him,  for  he  is  his  own  master,  and  free  to  engage 


JOB'S   SERVANTS   VOLUNTARY.  311 

with  whomsoever  he  pleases.  And  so  of  every  one  of  Abra- 
ham's servants,  as  well  as  Job's ;  and  so  of  all  the  servants 
ever  "described  as  employed  among  the  Hebrews,  whether 
native  or  of  strangers  ;  the  "  possession"  of  them  was  a  posses- 
sion of  their  services  merely  as  an  equivalent  for  money  paid 
to  themselves. 

The  culminating  and  conquering  point  in  this  illustration  is 
that  of  its  being  employed  with  reference  to  the  longest 
period  of  service  possible,  that  is,  the  period  to  the  jubilee, 
and  styled  for  ever.  This  kind  of  service  also,  this,  which  was 
to  be  for  an  inheritance  of  a  possession  for  the  children  of  the 
family,  is  proved  to  have  been  as  voluntary  on  the  part  of  the 
servant,  wjjose  services  were  thus  engaged  as  a  family  heri- 
tage, as  on  the  part  of  the  master  or  householder  engaging 
them.  Wilt  thou  take  him  for  a  servant  for  ever  ?  Will  he 
make  this  covenant  with  thee  ?  Canst  thou  buy  him,  canst 
thou  persuade  him  by  money  to  be  such  a  fixture  in  thine 
household,  bound,  for  so  long  a  time,  to  thee  and  to  thy  chil- 
dren ?  Nothing  can  exceed,  nor  can  any  thing  evade,  the 
demonstrative  power  of  this  illustration  against  slavery,  and 
in  proof  of  freedom.* 

*  Compare  ROSENMUELLER  on  Job  stead  of  being  at  the  disposal  of  tho 
xl.,  28,  tho  pactum  or  covenant,  as  in  master,  to  be  used  by  him  as  his  prop- 
Deut.  xv.,  17 ;  also  SAALSCHUTZ,  erty,  to  be  maltreated  and  put  to 
Laws  of  Moses,  Vol.  IL,  devotes  a  death  at  his  pleasure,  to  be  tasked, 
paragraph  to  the  consideration  of  the  tortured,  bought  and  sold,  as  a  brute 
impossibility  of  slavery,  in  the  sense  beast,  the  servant  was  protected  by 
of  that  word  in  modern  times,  and  law  from  all  injustice,  was  shielded 
among  other  people,  prevailing  among  from  the  tyranny  of  the  master,  and 
the  Hebrews,  and  the  impropriety  of  from  every  one  of  the  abuses  of  which 
the  word  slavery,  as  applied  to  their  slavery,  and  especially  American 
system  of  domestic  service.  Every  slavery,  is  the  monstrous  accumula- 
element  of  injustice  and  oppression  tion.  There  could  consequently  bo 
inhering  in  slavery  was  most  care-  no  slaves  among  the  Hebrews.  Corn- 
fully  and  distinctly  forbidden,  and  in-  pare  JAY  on  Hebrew  servitude. 


CHAPTER    XXVII, 

CASE  OF  THE  NATIVE  HEBREW  SELLING  HIMSELF  TO  THE  STBANGEE. — To  THE  STOCK  OF 
THE  STRANGER'S  FAMILY. — MEANING  OF  THIS  PHRASE  AND  CONTRACT. — PROOF  FKOM 
IT  AGAINST  SLAVERY. — THE  HEBREWS,  IN  SUCH  A  CASE,  AS  MUCH  AN  INHERITANCK 
AND  POSSESSION  FOR  STRANGERS,  AS  STRANGERS  FOR  THEM. — SLAVERY  IMPOSSIBLE  IN 
EITHER  CASE. — THE  JUBILEE  STATUTE  A  NATURALIZATION  LAW. — ARGUMENT  FROM 
THE  AFTER  HISTORY. 

WE  are  not  left  to  conjecture  in  regard  to  the  meaning  of 
the  phrase  inherit  a  possession,  or  receive  an  inhefitance  for 
your  children  after  you.  We  have  it  most  happily  demon- 
strated as  not  indicating  any  such  thing  as  slavery  or  invol- 
untary service,  by  the  case  of  Hebrews  themselves  engaging 
to  become  just  such  an  inheritance  for  the  children  of  the 
stranger,  in  the  family  of  the  stranger.  But  they  could  not  be 
slaves;  they  were  neither  permitted  to  enslave  themselves  nor 
others.  Yet  they  could  engage  their  services,  in  a  voluntary 
contract,  for  so  long  a  period,  that  the  contract,  the  time,  the 
service  engaged,  might  legally  and  justly  belong  to  the  chil- 
dren of  the  master  engaging  and  paying  for  them,  till  the  whole 
contract  was  fulfilled. 

FOURTH   CLAUSE,    OF   PERSONAL  LIBERTY. 

The  meaning  of  the  verse  before  us  is  settled  entirely  be- 
yond question  by  the  next  clause  in  the  enactment,  where  the 
phrase,  a  possession  and  inheritance  for  your  children  after 
you,  is  defined  and  explained  by  a  phrase  in  the  47th  verse, 
where  the  case  is  supposed  of  a  native  Hebrew  selling  himself 
to  a  stranger  or  sojourner,  to  be  taken  in  the  same  manner  as 
an  inheritance  for  their  children  after  them  ;  the  Hebrew  sell- 
ing himself  for  a  servant  TO  THE  STOCK  OF  THE  STRANGER'S 
FAMILY.  Here  is  the  whole  meaning  of  the  preceding  con- 


CONTRACT   WITH   THE   FAMILY   STOCK.  313 

tract  as  applied  to  servants  from  the  families  of  the  strangers 
and  sqjourners  selling  themselves  to  the  Hebrews*  until  the 
jubilee,  that  is,  to  the  stock  of  the  Hebrew's  family.  If  such 
sale  on  the  part  of  the  Hebrew  servant  did  not  constitute  him 
a  bond-servant  or  slave,  neither  on  the  part  of  the  heathen 
servant  did  it  constitute  him  a  slave ;  and  if  such  sale,  by 
which  the  Hebrew  servant  became  an  inheritance  belonging 
to  the  stock  of  the  stranger's  family,  did  not  interfere  with 
the  law  of  jubilee,  by  which  every  inhabitant  of  the  land  was 
free  in  the  fiftieth  year,  neither  did  it  so  interfere  on  the  part 
of  the  heathen  servant,  when  he  had  become  an  inheritance 
belonging  to  the  stock  of  the  Hebrew's  family. 

We  suppose  this  fourth  clause,  in  regard  to  Hebrew  servants 
and  their  treatment,  to  commence  with  the  last  paragraph  in 
the  46th  verse ;  and  so  commencing,  it  reads  as  follows : 
"  Moreover,  over  your  brethren,  the  children  of  Israel,  ye  shall 
not  rule  one  over  another  with  rigor.  But  if  a  stranger  or 
sojourner  wax  rich  by  thee,  and  thy  brother  that  dwelleth  by 
him  wax  poor,  and  sell  himself  unto  the  stranger  or  sojourner 
by  thee,  OR  TO  THE  STOCK  OF  THE  STRANGER'S  FAMILY,  after 
that  he  is  sold,  he  may  be  redeemed  again,"  etc.  The  Hebrew 
here  for  the  sale  is  *£*$,  as  in  Exodus,  xxi.  Y,  and  Leviticus,  xxv. 
39,  42,  translated  in  verse  39  be  sold,  but  in  verse  47  sell  him- 
self, which  latter  is  the  true  translation.  But  the  phrase  most 
important  to  be  considered  is  the  stock  of  the  stranger's  fam- 
ily, -IA  nhatttt.^.yV  "1553;%  i.  e.,  if  he  sell  himself  to  the  stock,  or 
family  tree,  of  the  stranger,  to  the  trunk  of  the  family  of  the 
stranger.  The  meaning  is  exactly  that  of  the  phrase  in  the  46th 
verse,  "  an  inheritance  for  your  children  after  you  to  inherit 
a  possession."  The  apprenticeship  is  to  the  stock  of  the  family 
for  the  whole  number  of  years  to  the  next  jubilee. 

CASE    OF   THE   POOR   HEBREW  CONTRACTING  FOR  SERVICE   WITH 
THE    STRANGER. 

The  case  in  this  clause  is  of  a  Hebrew  waxing  poor,  and 

14 


314  HEBREW'S  CONTRACT  TO  THE  JUBILEE. 

selling  himself  on  this  long  lease  of  his  services,  limited  only 
by  the  jubilee,  to  the  family  of  some  rich  stranger.  He  is 
said  to  have  sold  himself,  in  this  transaction,  to  the  stock  of 
the  family ;  that  is,  he  has  made  a  contract  to  abide  in  the 
family  and  serve  them,  and  their  children  after  them, .  until 
the  jubilee.  This  is  precisely  what  the  strangers  were  sup- 
posed to  do,  when  they  were  taken  as  an  inheritance  for  the 
Hebrews  and  their  children  after  them.  They  sold  themselves 
to  the  stock  of  the  Hebrew  family,  that  is,  they  made  a  last- 
ing contract  for  service,  not  to  be  interrupted  till  the  jubilee, 
unless  they  were  redeemed,  brought  back  again  before  the 
conclusion  of  the  contract.  A  relative  might  redeem  the 
Hebrews  thus  sold,  or,  if  they  were  able,  they  might  redeem 
themselves,  that  is,  might  buy  back  the  right  to  their  own 
services,  for  which  they  had  been  paid  beforehand. 

For  they  had  received  the  money  for  the  whole  number  of 
years  remaining,  when  the  contract  was  made,  before  the  next 
jubilee.  This  is  proved  by  verse  51,  and  by  the  provisions  of 
the  enactment  regulating  the  manner  of  the  repurchase.  The 
servant  redeeming  himself  was  to  reckon  with  his  master,  and 
pay  back  part  of  the  money  for  which  he  had  sold  himself,  ac- 
cording to  the  number  of  years  remaining  of  his  unfulfilled 
contract  up  to  the  jubilee.  If  more  years  remained,  he  would 
have  to  pay  more,  if  less,  less,  as  the  price  of  his  redemption. 
And  the  reckoning  was  to  be  year  by  year,  according  to  the 
reckoning  by  which  the  yearly  hired  servant  was  paid  for  his 
services ;  for  the  peculiarity  of  the  treatment  o'f  a  Hebrew 
servant  bound  to  his  master's  family  until  the  jubilee,  was  just 
this,  that  he  should  be  treated  as  a  yearly  hired  servant  would 
have  to  be  treated ;  this  is  apparent  from  verses  50  and  53, 
compared  with  verse  40.  It  seems  to  have  been  considered  a 
generous  and  gentle  treatment  of  the  servant  on  this  long 
contract,  if  he  were  treated  as  a  hired  servant,  a  i-sto,  but  if 
not,  then  this  long  contract  was  a  rigorous  rule.  It  was  en- 
acted in  behalf  of  every  Hebrew  servant  that  during  this  long 


TREATMENT  UNDER  THIS   CONTRACT.  315 

contract  he  should  be  with  his  master  as  a  yearly  hired  serv- 
ant, rtifca  n:»  "vstes,  and  that  his  master  should  not  rule  with 
rigor  over  him.  But  no  such  specification  was  made  in  be- 
half of  the  heathen  servant,  or  the  servant  from  the  families 
of  the  sojourners  and  strangers,  and  in  this  important  respect 
the  native  Hebrew  was  preferred  before  the  foreigner,  and 
greater  privileges  were  secured  to  him  by  law.  Indeed,  the 
specific  clauses  of  enactment  in  this  jubilee  chapter,  from  verse 
38  to  the  'close,  are  occupied  mainly  with  establishing  these 
distinctions  between  one  and  the  same  class  of  Hebrew  and 
heathen  servants,  namely,  those  whose  lease  of  service  ex- 
tended to  the  jubilee. 

In  this  view,  it  is  not  important  whether  the  latter  half  of 
the  46th  verse,  which  we  have  preferred  to  read  as  the  open- 
ing or  preamble  of  the  fourth  clause,  be  joined  to  what  follows 
or  to  what  precedes.  In  our  translation  it  belongs  to  what 
pi-ecedes,  and  the  Hebrew  conjunction  has  been  translated 
but  instead  of  and ;  so  giving  the  force  of  contrast,  as  if  the 
families  of  strangers  might  be  subjected  to  a  more  rigorous 
service  than  of  native  Hebrews.  In  the  respect  which  we 
have  pointed  out,  this  is  true  ;  but  the  word  bondmen  in  the 
preceding  part  of  the  verse  so  translated,  not  being  in  the 
original,  nor  any  thing  to  justify  it,  a  wrong  impression  is 
produced  ;  it  is  made  to  appear  as  if  the  heathen  might  be 
used  as  bondmen  or  slaves,  but  the  Hebrews  not ;  whereas, 
there  is  no  consideration  of  the  state  of  a  bondrnan  or  slave 
at  all,  nor  any  possibility  of  such  state  admitted,  but  only  a 
specification  of  the  respective  manner  in  which  the  Hebrew 
and  heathen  servant,  under  the  same  contract  as  to  time, 
should  be  treated  during  that  time.  Over  such  servants  of 
the  children  of  strangers  as  the  Hebrews  might  buy,  they 
might  rule  for  the  whole  period  of  the  contract,  without  be- 
ing obliged  to  treat  them  during  that  time  as  hired  servants 
must  be  treated ;  "  but  over  your  brethren,  the  children  of 
Israel,  ye  shall  not  rule  one  over  another  with  rigor."  That 


316  NOT   TO   BE   RUXED    WITH    BIGOB. 

this  is  the  only  point  of  contrast  is  proved  by  the  53d  verse  : 
"  As  a  yearly  hired  servant  shall  he  be  with  him,  and  his  mas- 
ter shall  not  rule  over  him  with  rigor  in  thy  sight." 

MEANING    OF   THE   PHRASE,    BULK   WITH    BIGOR. 

This  phrase,  rule  over  him  with  rigor,  as  in  verses  53,  46, 
and  43,  thou  shcdt  not  rule  over  him  with  rigor,  l.a  rj-~r\-so 
ti~Bs,  is  found  only  in  this  chapter  of  Leviticus,  and  in  con- 
nection with  this  law  of  jubilee.  But  in  the  first. chapter  of 
Exodus  a  similar  phrase  is  employed,  descriptive  of  the  rig- 
orous service  imposed  by  the  Egyptians  on  the  children  of 
Israel  in  the  time  of  their  oppression  :  They  made  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  to  serve  with  rigor.  All  their  service,  wherein 
they  made  them  serve,  was  icith  rigor,  trjs  nss  i£x  srj-hs— Vs 
Jl^a.  Any  such  oppressive  rule  was  forbidden  ;  it  was  a 
crushing  oppression,  from  which  God  had  delivered  them,  and 
they  were  defended  by  special  edict,  from  ever  exercising  the 
same  upon  others.  It  only  needs  to  repeat,  in  this  connection, 
the  benevolent  command  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  Leviti- 
cus: "  If  a  stranger  sojourn  with  thee  in  your  land,  ye  shall 
not  oppress  him,  but  the  stranger  that  dwelleth  with  you  shall 
be  unto  you  as  one  born  amongst  you,  and- thou  shalt  love 
him  as  thyself,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt," 
and  to  connect  with  this  the  statute  in  Leviticus  xxiv. :  "  Ye 
shall  have  one  manner  of  law,  as  well  for  the  stranger,  as  for 
one  of  your  own  country,"  and  we  shall  feel  it  to  be  impossi- 
ble that,  in  one  and  the  same  breath  of  divine  legislation,  an 
oppressive  treatment,  forbidden  for  the  Hebrews,  was  permit- 
ted and  appointed  for  the  strangers. 

If  it  had  been  plainly  said,  Ye  shall  not  oppress  the  children 
of  the  Hebrews,  but  ye  may  oppress  the  children  of  strangers, 
what  must  have  been  thought,  what  would  have  been  said,  of 
such  legislation,  so  contradictory  in  itself,  and  so  glaringly  in« 
consistent  with  previous  legislation  in  regard  to  the  same  class? 
Yet  this  is  the  very  inconsistency,  and  contradiction,  and  moral 


OPPBESSIVE   TREATMENT   FORBIDDEN.  31? 

obliquity,  implied  and  involved  in  the  assertion  of  those  who 
contend  that  the  forbidding  of  a  rigorous  treatment  of  the  He- 
brew servants,  licenses  and  authorizes,  and  was  intended  so  to 
do,  an  oppressive  treatment  of  the  heathen  servants,  even  as 
slaves.  Never  was  a  more  monstrous  argument  instituted, 
subversive  of  the  very  first  ideas  of  the  divine  benevolence 
and  justice  taught  in  the  Mosaic  books  themselves,  as  well  as 
in  all  the  other  Scriptures.  The  argument  could  hardly  have 
been  proposed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  use  of  the  word  bon& 
men  in  our  English  version,  in  the  46th  verse  of  this  chapter, 
where  there  is  no  such  word,  nor  any  thing  answering  to  it,  in 
the  original  Hebrew.  And  even  in  the  margin  our  translators 
have  put  the  more  literal  and  truthful  rendering,  so  that  a 
careful  English  reader  may  see  that  there  is  no  such  word  as 
bondmen  in  the  text. 

THE    CROWNING    STATUTE    OF    PERSONAL    LIBERTY    IN    THE 
JUBILEE   LA.W. 

The  jubilee  statute,  the  great  crowning  statute  of  universal 
personal  liberty,  was  passed  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land, 
and  no  statute  of  limitation  or  exception  was,  at  any  time, 
afterwards  added ;  but  only  statutes  were  added  specifying 
the  manner  of  treatment  up  to  the  time  of  release.  But  if 
there  is  nothing  in  the  great  jubilee  statute  itself  that  limits 
it,  expressly  and  undeniably,  then  it  must  be  interpreted  in 
accordance  with  the  humane  and  free  spirit  of  other  Hebrew 
legislation  on  the  same  subject.  It  should  be  our  desire  not 
to  give  to  despotism,  but  freedom,  the  benefit  of  any  doubt. 
Were  it  not  for  a  desire  to  interpret  the  statute  as  against 
universal  freedom ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  careless  assump- 
tion that  slavery  existed  among  the  Hebrews,  it  could  never 
have  been  so  interpreted.  Men  have  looked  through  the  glass 
of  modern  slavery,  and  the  history  of  ancient,  to  find  the  same 
system  among  the  Hebrews.  But,  in  reality,  there  is  found  a  set 
of  laws  and  causes  to  prevent  and  render  it  impossible,  and  at 


818  COMMON  LAW   AGAINST   SLAVERY. 

length  to  break  it  up,  all  over  the  world.  The  system  of  He- 
brew common  law  would,  by  itself,  have  put  an  end  to  slavery 
everywhere.  The  Hebrew  laws  elevated  and  dignified  free 
labor,  and  converted  slave  labor  into  free. 

Slavery  could  not  be  utterly  abolished  in  any  other  way 
than  by  a  system  of  such  laws.  A  people  must  be  trained  for 
freedom.  The  heathen  slaves  could  not  be  admitted  to  dwell 
among  the  Hebrews,  except  in  such  subjection,  preparatory 
to  complete  emancipation.  The  subjection  itself  was  a  volun- 
tary apprenticeship,  and  not  involuntary  servitude ;  and  by 
reason  of  the  privileges  secured,  and  the  instruction  enjoined 
by  law,  it  was  a  constant  preparation  for  entire  emancipation, 
a  constant  elevation  of  character ;  and  then,  every  fifty  years, 
the  safety  of  complete  emancipation  was  demonstrated.  The 
jubilee  statute  can  not  be  understood  in  any  other  light.  But 
when  the  vail  of  prejudice  is  taken  away,  it  is  especially  by  the 
tenor  of  the  Hebrew  laws  in  regard  to  slavery,  that  the  beauty 
and  glory  of  the  Hebrew  legislation,  its  justice,  wisdom,  and 
beneficence  become  more  apparent  than  ever. 

This  law  of  heathen  servitude  until  the  jubilee,  was  a  natu- 
ralization law  of  as  many  years'  duration  as  would  elapse  be- 
fore the  next  jubilee.  It  was  so  many  years'  probation  of 
those  who  had  previously  been  idolaters  and  slaves,  for  free- 
dom. It  was  a  contrivance  to  drain  heathenism  of  its  fecu- 
lence. The  heathen  slaves  were  in  no  condition  to  be  admit- 
ted at  once  to  the  privileges  of  freedom  and  of  citizenship 
among  the  Hebrews.  They  needed  to  be  under  restraint,  law, 
and  service.  They  were  put  under  such  a  system  as  made 
them  familiar  with  all  the  religious  privileges  and  observances 
which  God  had  bestowed  and  ordered,  a  system  that  admitted 
them  to  instruction  and  kindness,  and  prepared  them  to  pass 
into  integral  elements  of  the  nation.  It  was  a  system  of  eman- 
cipation and  of  moral  transfiguration,  going  on  through  ages ; 
the  taking  up  of  an  element  of  foreign  ignorance,  depravity, 
and  misery,  and  converting  it  into  an  element  of  native  com- 


NATUBAL   AND   JUST   DISTINCTIONS.  319 

fort,  knowledge,  and  piety.  And  the  statute  of  the  jubilee, 
the  statute  of  liberty  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  every 
fifty  years,  was  the  climax  of  all  the  beneficent  statutes  by 
which  the  sting  was  extracted  from  slavery,  the  fang  drawn  ; 
and  by  this  statute,  in  conjunction  with  all  the  rest,  the  He- 
brew republic  was  to  hold  to  the  world  the  glory  of  an  exam- 
ple of  freedom  and  equality,  in  marvelous  and  delightful  con- 
trast with  the  system  of  horrible  oppression,  cruelty,  and 
bondage,  everywhere  else  prevailing. 

The  distinction  between  the  tenure  and  the  treatment  of 
Hebrew  servants  and  foreign,  was  not  arbitrary.  It  grew 
naturally  out  of  God's  whole  revealed  and  providential  sys- 
tem, as  well  as  being  in  conformity  with  the  necessity  of  the 
case.  But  if  there  had  been  no  necessity,  it  was  only  in  keep- 
ing with  the  favor  of  God  toward  his  own  chosen  people,  that 
the  servants  from  among  the  heathen  might,  if  they  were 
willing,  be  held  for  a  period  much  longer  than  the  servants 
from  among  the  Hebrews,  and  in  a  less  exalted  and  more  gen- 
eral service  than  their  own.  A  Hebrew  servant  was  free 
every  seventh  year;  a  heathen  servant  might  be  held  by  a 
contract  for  a  much  longer  time,  for  the  whole  time  remaining 
to  the  jubilee.  It  would  have  been  a  strange  thing,  a  solecism, 
if  there  had  not  been  some  such  distinction.  Yet  the  distinc- 
tion itself  was  voluntary ;  that  is,  it  was  at  any  heathen  serv- 
ant's option  to  make  a  contract  for  the  whole  period  to  the 
next  jubilee,  or  not.  If,  rather  than  make  such  a  contract,  he 
chose  to  return  to  the  heathen  country,  he  was  at  perfect  lib- 
erty to  go  ;  and  if  he  staid,  and  could  find  any  master  to  take 
him  as  a  hired  servant,  and  not  as  a  servant  of  all  work,  till  the 
jubilee,  there  was  no  law  against  that :  he  was  at  liberty  to 
hire  himself  out  on  the  best  terms,  and  to  the  best  master  that 
he  could  find.  So  much  is  indisputable,  and  so  much  is  abso- 
lutely and  entirely  inconsistent  with  slavery. 


320  HISTORIC  JUBILEE   ARGUMENT. 

GENERAL   ARGUMENT   FROM   THE    AFTER-HISTORY. 

The  argument  and  evidence  from  the  after-history  of  the 
Jews,  in  regard  to  the  unlimited  application  of  the  law  of  ju- 
bilee to  the  strangers  as  well  as  native  Hebrews,  is  nearly  as 
demonstrative  and  irresistible  as  that  from  the  statute  itself. 
It  is  clear  that  if  the  heathen  had  been  given  and  appointed 
of  Jehovah  to  be  taken  as  perpetual  slaves  by  the  Hebrews,  a 
race  of  slaves  must  have  been  constituted,  who  would  have 
increased,  in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries,  to  the  number  of 
hundreds  of  thousands,  even  to  millions.  But  that  no  such 
race  was  ever  in  existence  is  equally  clear,  not  the  least  ti-ace 
of  them  being  found  in  the  sacred  records.  Had  there  been 
such  a  race  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah,  the  Jewish  masters  Avould 
not  have  been  so  eager  to  convert  their  Hebrew  servants  into 
slaves.  That  conspiracy  against  the  law  indicates  that  they 
had,  at  that  time,  very  few  heathen  servants.  Indeed,  by  the 
natural  process  of  the  law  of  jubilee,  in  connection  with  other 
statutes,  each  generation  of  heathen  servants,  instead  of  being 
perpetuated  and  increased,  passed  into  free  and  integral  ele- 
ments of  the  Hebrew  State  ;  so  that,  after  the  lapse  of  no  very 
long  period,  the  supply  of  heathen  servants  must  have  been 
greatly  diminished,  and  almost  the  only  prevailing  form  of 
service  must  have  been  the  six  years'  period,  as  appointed  in 
the  twenty-first  chapter  of  Exodus. 

If  the  Hebrew  families  and  masters  could,  by  law,  have 
held  as  many  heathen  as  they  chose  for  slaves,  and  the  chil- 
dren born  of  such  slaves  followed  the  condition  of  their  par- 
ents, then  nothing  could  have  prevented  such  a  set  of  men 
as  were  ready  to  undertake  and  carry  through  a  revolution 
from  freedom  to  slavery  in  respect  to  their  own  countrymen, 
from  buying  and  breeding  heathen  slaves  without  limit,  espe- 
cially if  God's  law  for  the  land  had  absolutely  given  and  be- 
queathed the  heathen  to  them  for  that  express  purpose.'  This 
would  have  been  such  an  establishment  of  slavery  by  the 


SLAVERY   A   CLIMACTERIC   CRIME.  321 

divine  law,  as  would  have  rendered  inevitable  and  permanent 
the  most  diabolical  and  venal  licentiousness  and  cruelty  that 
ever,  in  any  systematic  shape,  has  cursed  the  earth.  But,  by 
the  law  of  the  land,  after  an  appointed  time,  the  strangers  and 
sojourners,  and  children  of  strangers  from  among  the  heathen, 
all  became  denizens,  citizens,  proselytes,  and  could  claim  the 
privileges  of  Hebrews.  By  the  time  one  season  of  jubilee  had 
been  run  through,  they  would  "  enter  into  the  congregation 
of  the  Lord  ;"  and  thus  slavery  was  effectually  and  fo.r  ever 
prevented,  both  by  law,  and  the  practical  working  of  the  insti- 
tutions of  society.  Hence  the  grasping  avarice  of  the  Jews 
turned  at  length  against  their  own  native  servants  ;  and 
hence  their  daring  and  cruel  attempt  to  change,  by  violence, 
those  fundamental  and  far-reaching  statutes  of  freedom  and 
a  free  policy,  appointed  for  them  by  Jehovah. 

To  those  who  have  not  examined  the  subject,  it  seems 
strange  that  not  the  sin  of  idolatry,  but  the  sin  of  slavery, 
the  violation  of  the  law  of  freedom,  should  have  been  marked 
of  God,  among  the  catalogue  of  Jewish  crimes,  as  the  one 
decisive  act  of  wickedness  that  filled  up  the  measure  of  their 
iniquities,  and  brought  down  the  wrath  of  God  upon  them 
without  remedy  or  repeal.  But  the  wonder  ceases,  when  the 
nature  of  the  crime  is  taken  into  consideration.  Being  a 
crime  concocted  and  determined  by  all  the  princes,  priests, 
and  people,  together  with  the  king,  it  was  really  making  the 
whole  nation  a  nation  of  men-stealers  ;  and  man-stealing  was  a 
crime  appointed  in  the  law  of  God  to  the  punishment  of  death  ; 
so  that  the  adopting  of  it  by  the  government  and  the  people, 
was  an  enshrining  of  the  iniquity  in  public  and  most  glaring 
defiance  of  God's  authority,  in  the  form  of  their  state  policy. 
They  had  thus  contrived,  as  they  imagined,  a  security  even 
in  the  midst  of  their  oppression,  against  punishment.  It  was 
doing  that,  as  a  corporation  of  usurpers,  in  safety,  which  they 
could  not  have  done  as  individuals  without  exposure  to  the 
penalty  of  death.  But  though  hand  join  in  hand,  God's  ven- 

14 


322  GOD'S  SWIFT  VENGEANCE. 

geance  is  but  the  surer  and  more  terrible.  And  the  sword  of 
God  came  down  upon  them  in  the  very  midst  of  this  appall- 
ing crime,  as  swift,  almost,  as  the  lightning. 

Beyond  all  question  there  were  many  who  lent  themselves 
to  this  iniquity  for  the  sake  of  gain  and  power,  who  never 
were  guilty  of  the  sin  of  idolatry ;  they  would  have  abhorred 
that  wickedness,  as  worse  than  any  sacrilege ;  and  the  sin  of 
idolatry  was  not,  at  that  time,  adopted  by  the  government 
and  the  nation,  in  open  defiance  of  Almighty  God.  But  the 
sin  of  bringing  free  servants  into  a  forced,  involuntary  servi- 
tude, the  sin  of  changing  freemen  into  articles  of  property, 
the  sin  of  stealing  men  from  themselves,  and  chattelizing  them 
in  perpetual  slavery,  was  so  chosen  and  adopted ;  and  God's 
extremest  wrath  came  upon  the  whole  nation  in  consequence. 
Many  at  that  time  were  strenuous  for  rites,  but  not  for  right- 
eousness ;  for  the  law  as  to  religious  ceremonies,  but  not  for 
humanity  and  justice;  for  sacrifice  towards  God,  but  not 
mercy  nor  common  honesty  towards  man.  They  would  kill 
an  ox  for  worship,  and  steal  their  neighbor's  wages,  and  slay 
his  freedom,  in  the  same  breath.  They  "trusted  in  oppres- 
sion and  perverseness,  and  staid  themselves  thereon  ;"  and 
these  are  crimes,  the  lurid  light  of  which  burns  in  the  pages 
of  the  prophets  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Hosea,  and  others,  in  such  a 
manner,  that  we  see  how  the  nation  went  into  the  establish- 
ment of  slavery  against  the  repeated  warnings  and  denunci- 
ations of  God's  messengers,  in  every  faithful,  free  pulpit  all 
over  the  land.  Amazement  at  God's  wrath,  as  if  slavery 
were,  in  his  sight,  a  guilt  greater  than  idolatry,  passes,  under 
these  circumstances,  under  a  true  knowledge  of  the  case,  into 
amazement  at  God's  forbearance,  and  at  the  infatuation  of  the 
Jewish  people. 

They  were  deliberately  inaugurating  a  crime,  as  their  chosen 
state  policy,  which  they  knew  would  increase  in  a  numerical 
ratio  from  generation  to  generation.  If  it  could  have  been 
restricted  to  the  first  persons  stolen  and  deprived  of  their 


NATIONAL   SIN   SO   MUCH   THE   GREATER.  323 

liberty,  the  iniquity  would  have  been  comparatively  small. 
But  for  two  immortal  beings  forced  into  this  chattelism,  there 
would  be  five  others  stolen  and  forced,  in  like  manner,  by  the 
next  generation  ;  the  guilt  of  oppression  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  sufferance  of  cruelty  on  the  other,  enlarging  as  it  ran  on 
into  posterity.  Now  to  set  agoing  such  a  system  of  injustice, 
which  was  to  branch  out  like  the  hereditary  perdition  from 
the  depraved  head  of  a  race,  increasing  as  the  Rio  de  la  Plata 
or  the  Amazon ;  to  set  a  central  spring  of  thousand  other 
springs  of  domestic  and  state  tyranny  coiled,  and  coiling  on, 
in  geometrical  progression  ;  and  a  central  fountain  of  thousand 
other  fountains  of  inhumanity  and  misery ;  and  to  do  this  in 
opposition  to  the  light  of  freedom  and  religion,  and  of  laws  in 
protection  of  liberty,  given  from  God,  and  maintained  by  him 
for  a  thousand  years,  was  so  extreme  and  aggravated  a  pitch 
of  wickedness,  that  it  is  not  wonderful  that  God  put  an  instant 
stop  to  it,  by  wiping  Jerusalem  and  Judea  of  their  inhabitants, 
as  a  man  wipeth  a  dish  and  turneth  it  upside  down ;  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  we  find  the  king  and  the  nation  cut  off  at  once, 
by  this  enormous  crime,  from  all  possiblity  of  God's  further 
forbearance. 

The  evil  of  such  a  crime  was  the  greater,  because,  while  it 
is  enlarging  every  year,  both  in  guilt  and  hopelessness,  it  seems 
lessened  in  intensity,  as  it  passes  down  into  posterity.  Pos- 
terity are  content  to  receive  and  uphold  that  slavery  as  a  com- 
fortable domestic  institution,  which,  at  the  beginning,  was 
acknowledged  as  a  glaring  crime.  The  sons  of  the  first  inen- 
stealers  would,  with  comparatively  easy  consciences,  take  the 
children  of  those  whom  their  parents  had  stolen,  and  claim 
them  as  their  property,  being  slaves  born.  But,  in  fact,  in  a 
nice  adjustment  of  the  moral  question,  we  find  that  the  guilt 
is  doubled  ;  because,  while  the  parents  may  have  been  stolen 
only  from  themselves,  the  children  are  stolen  both  from  the 
parents  and  from  themselves.  The  stealing  and  enslaving  of 
the  parents  could  create  no  claim  upon  the  children  as  prop- 


324  INCREASING   BY   PROGRESS    OP   AGES. 

erty,  nor  produce  any  mitigation  or  extenuation  of  the  sin  of 
stealing  the  children  also  and  holding  them  as  slaves.  And  so 
the  guilt  runs  on,  nor  could  the  progress  of  whole  ages  dimin- 
ish it,  or  change  its  character. 

Now,  although  never  a  word  should  have  been  found  bear- 
ing on  this  subject  in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  manifest  that 
a  large  space  is  given  to  it  in  the  Divine  revelation,  and  if  there 
is  any  silence  in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  because  so  much  and 
so  plainly  was  spoken  in  the  Old.  It  may  be  said,  If  ye  hear 
not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  ye  be  persuaded 
though  one  rose  from  the  dead.  If  the  Pentateuch  and  proph- 
ets be  received  as  the  word  of  God,  we  need  no  further  tes- 
timonial or  expression  of  God's  judgment  against  slavery. 
And  it  is  a  fearful  thing  for  any  man  to  endeavor  to  distort 
the  tenor  of  this  revelation  from  justice  to  injustice,  from  kind- 
ness to  oppression,  from  the  advocacy  of  freedom  to  the  sanc- 
tion of  slavery.  Let  no  man,  because  slavery  is  the  sin  of  his 
own  country,  therefore  seek  to  defend  it  from  the  Scriptures, 
handling  the  word  of  God  deceitfully,  acting  with  it  as  a  dis- 
honest dealer  with  a  pack  of  cards,  or  a  gambler  Avith  loaded 
dice.  Strangely  intense  must  be  the  prejudice  that,  for  the 
sake  of  shielding  slavery  from  being  reprobated  as  a  sin,  would 
rather  rejoice  to  have  found  it  commended  and  commanded 
in  the  word  of  God,  than  admit  the  demonstration  that  it 
stands  in  the  condemnation  of  the  Almighty. 

The  word  of  God  is  as  an  electric  or  galvanic  battery,  com- 
posed of  many  parts,  all  of  them  being  directed  to  the  object 
of  overcoming  and  removing  sin,  and  establishing  love  to  God 
and  man  as  the  rule  and  habit  on  earth  as  in  heaven.  Then 
what  a  piece  of  villainy  it  is  towards  mankind  as  sinners,  to 
draw  off,  as  it  were,  over  night,  the  power  from  any  part  of 
this  battery,  its  power  to  rouse  the  conscience,  its  power  to 
startle  the  moral  sense  into  the  noting  and  abhorring  of  moral 
abominations  long  practiced  as  forms  of  social  expediency  and 
luxury.  Both  historical  and  preceptive,  the  word  of  God  is  a 


GUILT    OF    CONCEALING   GOD'S   YVOBD.  325 

warning  against  sin  ;  many  things  in  it  are  light-houses  on 
dangerous  reefs.  Therefore,  no  greater  treachery  is  possible, 
nor  more  malignant  treason  against  mankind,  than  to  creep 
into  one  of  these  light-houses,  and  under  pretense  of  being  its 
keeper,  to  put  out  its  light ;  or,  still  worse,  to  put  up  the  sig- 
nal of  its  being  a  safe  harbor,  when  the  man  or  the  nation  that 
makes  for  it  will  inevitably  be  dashed  in  pieces. 

In  the  face  of  danger  and  death,  God's  ministers  were  com- 
manded to  speak  all  the  words  of  the  Lord  to  the  guilty  peo- 
ple, to  the  nation,  the  cities,  the  king,  the  princes,  the  proph- 
ets, and  the  priests.  "  Diminish  not  a  word ;  if  so  be  they 
will  hearken,  and  turn  every  man  from  his  evil  way,  that  I 
may  repent  me  of  the  evil  which  I  purpose  to  do  unto  them, 
because  of  the  evil  of  their  doings."  And  again :  "  It  may  bo 
that  they  will  hear,  and  return,  that  I  may  forgive  their 
iniquity  and  their  sin."  And  again,  in  regard  to  the  prophets 
that  withheld  the  truth,  "  They  walk  in  lies ;  they  strengthen 
also  the  hands  of  evil  doers,  that  none  doth  return  from  his 
wickedness.  But  if  they  had  stood  in  my  counsel,  and  had 
caused  my  people  to  hear  my  words,  then  they  should  have 
turned  them  from  their  evil  way,  and  from  the  evil  of  their 
doings." 

What  could  be  more  impressive  than  these  warnings,  in  re- 
gard to  the  guilt  of  concealing  God's  word  because  of  the  fear 
of  man,  and  on  account  of  the  popularity  of  sin  ?  The  very 
purpose  for  which  a  divine  revelation  was  given  is  prevented, 
and  its  accomplishment  made  impossible,  by  such  treachery  ; 
and  therefore  our  blessed  Lord,  in  the  very  opening  of  his 
own  ministry,  declared,  in  regard  to  all  the  commands  in  the 
Old  Testament,  in  the  law  and  the  prophets,  that  whosoever 
should  break  the  least  of  them,  AND  TEACH  MEN  so,  which  he 
would  do  by  denying,  perverting,  or  concealing  them,  should 
be  excluded  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII, 

COMPARISON  OF  KOMAN  AND  AMERICAN  SLAVERY. — THE  CLIMAX  OF  IMMORALITY  IN  TUB 
SANCTION  or  SLAVERY  UNDER  THK  GOSPEL.— THE  LAWS  OF  GOD  IN  THE  OLD  TESTA- 
MENT IN  FULL  FOBCE  IN  JUDKA  UNDER  THE  NEW. — OPPRESSION  SlNFULlN  ITSELF. — WUAT 

is  SINFUL  UNDER  TIIE  OLD  TESTAMENT,  SINFUL  ALSO  UNDER  THE  NEW. — IMPIETY  OF 
MAKING  TUB  GOSPEL  THE  MINISTER  or  SIN. 

IT  is  wonderful  and  fearful  to  see  how  the  persistent  indul- 
gence of  any  sin,  under  the  light  of  the  gospel,  conducts  back 
the  soul  at  length,  as  it  were  blindfold,  into  a  worse  darkness 
than  that  of  heathenism;  worse  by  contrast  with  light,  and 
worse  because  committed  against  light,  and  without  the  ex- 
cuse of  darkness.  The  practice  of  slavery,  under  the  light 
of  the  gospel,  has  at  length  carried  a  whole  Christian  com- 
munity, with  the  sanction  of  the  church  of  God,  to  the  main- 
tenance of  a  system,  as  divine,  which  reproduces  the  most 
atrocious  features  of  Roman  slavery.  The  product  of  a  cor- 
rupt Christianity,  the  result  of  the  truths  held  in  unrighteous- 
ness, and  of  that  judicial  blindness  which  follows,  is  much 
worse  than  the  product  of  heathenism,  even  in  being  only  the 
same ;  for  it  is  accompanied  with  a  conscience  seared  as  with 
a  hot  iron.  The  old  Greeks  and  Romans,  in  the  absence  of  a 
divine  revelation,  did  not  see  the  cruelty  and  wickedness  of 
slavery,  but  they  never  attributed  the  system  to  the  benevo- 
lence of  God,  never  dreamed  of  asserting  that  it  was  one  of 
the  activities  of  the  divine  attributes,  or  proofs  of  a  preemi- 
nent piety.  In  the  United  States,  a  Christian  people,  under 
the  light  of  a  divine  revelation,  explicit  in  regard  to  this  very 
form  of  oppression,  adopt,  cherish,  applaud  and  pray  over  it, 
yea,  give  thanks  to  God  for  it,  not  only  as  the  most  perfect 
state  of  human  society,  and  not  antagonistic  with  the  divine 


ROMAN   AND   AMERICAN   SLAVERY. 


327 


will,  but  as  of  direct  divine  appointment  and  support,  as  being 
the  completest  and  most  comprehensive  providential  mission- 
ary institute. 

And  what  is  this  INSTITUTE  ?  What  is  the  gehenna  of  disci- 
pline on  earth,  by  the  passing  of  the  soul  through  which, 
God's  providence  is  impiously  affirmed  to  have  appointed  the 
African  race  to  salvation,  and  constituted  the  kidnappers  and 
slaveholders  of  the  United  States  his  ordained  and  sancti- 
fied missionaries?  It  is  the  reproduction  of  the  most  bar- 
barous system  of  slavery  ever  endured  in  the  pagan  world. 
The  reader  has  but  to  consult  the  customary  authorities,  and 
he  will  be  appalled  at  the  exactitude  of  the  sameness  of  Ro- 
man and  American  slavery.* 

Whether  we  take  the  definition  of  slavery  from  the  es- 
sence of  the  crime  of  man-stealing,  the  claim  of  PROPERTY  IN 


*  See  STROUD  and  others  on  the 
laws  relating  to  slavery.  Among  the 
Romans,  more  particularly,  slaves 
were  held,  pro  nullis,  pro  mortuis, 
pro  quadrupedibus,  for  no  men,  for 
dead  men,  for  beasts,  nay,  were  in 
a  much  worse  state  than  any  cattle 
whatever.  They  had  no  head  in 
the  state,  no  name,  no  tribe,  or  reg- 
ister. They  were  not  capable  of  be- 
ing injured,  nor  could  they  take  aught 
by  purchase  or  descent ;  they  had  no 
heirs,  and  could  make  no  will.  Ex- 
clusive of  what  was  called  their  pe- 
culiwn,  whatever  they  acquired  was 
their  master's ;  they  could  neither  plead 
nor  be  pleaded  for,  but  were  entirely 
excluded  from  all  civil  concerns ;  were 
not  entitled  to  the  rights  of  matri- 
mony, and  therefore  had  no  relief  in 
case  of  adultery ;  nor  were  they  prop- 
er objects  of  cognation  or  affinity. 
They  might  be  sold,  transferred,  or 
pawned,  like  other  goods  or  personal 
estate ;  for  goods  they  were,  and  as 
such  they  were  esteemed.  —  Com- 


pare  Fuss,    TAYLOR,    BECKER,   Es- 
CHKNBERG,   HoRXE,   and   others. 

Compare  the  accounts  of  these  au- 
thorities with  the  slave  laws  of  tho 
Southern  States,  or  with  the  elaborate 
reports  of  State  trials,  revealing  the 
nature  of  slavery,  as,  for  example,  the 
striking  case  of  Bayley  versus  Poin- 
dexter,  in  Virginia*  Compare  also 
tho  modes  of  punishment,  the  consti- 
tuted scourgers  and  torturers.  The 
burning  of  slaves  to  death  is  certain- 
ly worse  than  the  feeding  of  fishes 
with  their  flesh,  which  is  the  climax 
of  horror,  in  the  judgment  of  Seneca, 
on  the  cruelty  of  Vedius  Pollio.  But 
in  the  Roman  Pandects  burning  alive 
is  also  mentioned  as  a  punishment. 
Compare,  on  the  point  of  the  negation 
of  marital  rights,  and  the  impossibility 
of  relief  in  the  case  of  adultery,  the 
judgment  of  the  court  in  the  trial  of 
Sickles,  in  Washington,  and  the  oppo- 
site conclusion  of  a  similar  trial  of  a 
black  man  at  the  same  time  in  Balti- 
iflore. 


328  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   VIEW- 

MAN,  which,  wherever  assumed  and  enforced,  though  under 
sanction  of  law,  constitutes  the  pretended  owner  of  such  pre- 
tended property  a  MANSTEALER;  or  from  the  elementary 
crimes  against  God  and  man  involved  in  it  and  resulting  from 
it,  but  dignified  by  some  with  the  nomenclature  of  abuses  of 
slavery;  or  from  the  rigid  terms  of  the  slave  code  itself;  we 
find  it  alike  incompatible  with  Christianity,  and  reprobated 
and  forbidden  by  it.  There  is  no  such  oppression  or  sin  ad- 
mitted or  tolerated  in  the  Bible.  There  is  no  term  for  it  in 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  but  the  reality  of  it,  as  described  by 
its  elements,  is  forbidden  on  pain  of  death. 

We  have  seen  the  proof  of  all  this  in  the  Mosaic  laws,  il- 
lustrated and  enforced  in  the  Prophets.  Now  in  entering 
upon  the  New  Testament,  we  come  directly  from  the  latest 
utterances  of  divine  inspiration  in  the  Old,  not  to  find  those 
utterances  disregarded,  or  denied,  or  repealed,  not  to  find 
ourselves  confounded  by  a  system  of  social  wickedness  re- 
ceived into  Christ's  church,  and  taught  by  his  apostles,  against 
which  every  attribute  of  God  had  been  pointed  from  the  be- 
ginning. We  find  the  divine  law  in  full  force,  with  all  its  pre- 
cepts of  benevolence^  and  all  its  penalties.  The  laws  against 
stealing  and  making  merchandise  of  men,  the  laws  against 
oppression,  the  commands  to  love  thy  neighbor  and  the  stran- 
ger as  thyself,  to  break,  every  yoke,  to  deliver  the  oppressed, 
to  betray  not  the  outcast,  to  shelter  the  fugitive,  were  familiar 
to  the  Jews,  were  read  in  the  synagogues.*  Our  blessed 

*  PRTDEAtrx's  CONNEXION,  vol.  L,  p.  they  had  not  before.     After  that  cap- 

309. — "  If  it  be  examined  into,"  says  tivity,   and  the  return  of  the  Jews 

Prideaux,  "  how  it  came  to  pass  that  from  it,    synagogues    being    erected 

the  Jews  were  so  prone  to  idolatry  among  them  in  every  city,  to  which 

before  the  Babylonish  captivity,  and  they  constantly  resorted  for   public 

so   strongly  and  cautiously,  even  to  worship,  and  where  every  week  they 

superstition,  fixed  against  it  after  that  had  the  law  and  the  prophets  read 

captivity,  the  true  reason  hereof  will  unto   them,    and  were   instructed  in 

appear  to  be,  that  they  had  the  law  their  duty,  this  kept  them  in  a  thor- 

and  the  prophets  every  week  read  ough  knowledge  of  God  and  his  laws . 

unto  them  after  that  captivity,  whfftt  The  threats  which  they  found  in  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RULE  329 

Lord,  in  the  very  first  public  announcement  of  his  Messiah- 
ship,  robed  himself  in  these  very  Scriptures,  and  placed  upon 
his  own  head  this  crown  ;  himself  the  promised  Deliverer,  the 
Consoler  and  Redeemer,  to  break  every  yoke,  and  fulfill  the 
"acceptable  year,"  the  jubilee  year,  of  the  Lord. 

There  was  no  slavery  in  Judea ;  there  could  not  have  been, 
except  by  the  renewal  and  successful  accomplishment  of  a 
crime,  the  very  attempt  at  which  had  been  followed  of  God 
with  the  captivity  of  the  whole  people,  accompanied  by 
sword,  famine  and  the  pestilence.  There  was  now  no  more 
need  of  mentioning  slavery  by  name  than  there  had  been  in 
the  Old  Testament;  but  it  was  anew  forbidden  in  its  ele- 
ments, and  finally  rendered  impossible  all  over  the  world,  by 
the  injunctions  of  divine  inspiration  upon  masters.  RENDER 

UNTO  YOUR  SERVANTS  THAT  WHICH  IS  JUST  AND   EQUAL,  is   the 

great  law  of  Christian  abolitionism. 

Now  what  could  be  thought  of  a  Christian  man's  mind  or 
piety  if  such  a  man  were  asked  whether  oppression  was  to  be 
regarded  as  a  sin  against  God,  and  should  make  answer  that 
it  could  not  be  regarded  as  sinful  in  itself,  but  only  in  its  cir- 
cumstances, only  in  its  abuses  ?  What  are  the  abuses  of 
oppression  ?  It  will  be  acknowledged  that  oppression  is  for- 
bidden in  the  word  of  God.  We  are  instructed  to  pray  for 
deliverance  from  oppression,  because  it  is  a  state  so  hostile  to 
a  life  of  piety,  so  unfavorable  to  the  keeping  of  God's  com- 
mands. What  is  true  of  oppression  in  any  of  its  forms  must 
be  true  of  the  highest  degree  of  oppression.  If  it  is  oppres- 

prophets  against  the  breakers  of  the  stated  reading  services.      And  Paul 

laws  deterred  them  from  transgres-  disputed  and   taught    incessantly  in 

eing  against  them."  their  synagogues,  and  afterwards  dai- 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  en-  ly  in  the  school  of  Tyrannus.     The  di- 

tire  ceasing  of  any  violation  of  the  rect  testimony  of  God  against  slavery 

laws  against  slavery.     James  informs  could  neither   have    been   unknown 

us  that  Moses  had  of  old  in  every  nor  passed  by  in  silence,  neither  could 

city  those  that  preached  him ;  and  it  the  rights  of  servants,  as  protected  in 

was  not  on  the  Sabbath  merely,  but  the  Old  Testament,  have  been  ignored 

three  days  in  the  week,  that  they  had  in  the  New. 


330  GOD'S   LA.WS   IN   THE   OLD 

sion  to  compel  a  man  to  serve  without  wages,  it  is  certainly 
a  still  greater  oppression  to  sell  him  for  money.  If  it  is  op- 
pression to  take  away  a  man's  property,  it  is  still  greater  op- 
pression to  use  the  man  himself  as  property,  to  convert  him 
into  merchandise  for  another's  profit,  and  to  make  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  possess  any  thing  in  his  own  right.  If  op- 
pression is  forbidden  at  all  in  the  word  of  God,  then  this 
highest  kind  of  oppression  is  forbidden.  And  if  it  be  a  sin 
in  itself,  a  sin  per  se,  to  take  away  a  man's  wages,  or  to  de- 
prive him  of  any  of  his  rights,  it  is  not  less  a  sin  per  se  to  take 
away  all  his  rights,  to  reduce  him  to  such  a  condition  that  by 
law  he  has  no  rights,  can  plead  none,  but  is  a  mere  thing,  a 
chattel,  at  the  disposal  and  for  the  profit  of  his  owner. 

Now,  by  what  defiance  of  God  and  his  truth  and  righteous- 
ness, or  by  what  moral  insanity,  or  by  what  judicial  blindness 
of  depravity,  dare  men  aver,  or  can  they  aver,  that  while  op- 
pression is  forbidden  of  God,  slavery  is  not ;  that  while  the 
oppression  of  a  man  is  sinful,  the  holding  of  him  as  a  slave  is 
not  sinful?  How  can  any  man,  not  an  idiot,  affirm  that  while 
oppression  is  denounced  of  God,  slavery  is  commanded  ?  or 
that  while  in  the  Old  Testament  slavery  is  forbidden,  and 
every  one  of  its  elements  reprobated  as  under  God's  hatred 
and  wrath,  in  the  New  Testament  it  is  sanctioned  and  legal- 
ized as  under  God's  favor  ?  If  this  extreme  slander  were  true, 
then  would  the  old  dispensation,  under  the  law,  be  proved 
more  benevolent  and  kind,  more  loving  and  merciful,  more 
just  and  righteous,  than  the  new,  under  the  gospel. 

Under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  men  were  forbidden, 
on  pain  of  death,  to  take,  hold,  or  sell  human  beings  as  prop- 
erty. The  taking  of  a  man  as  a  slave,  against  his  own  con- 
sent, was  the  stealing  of  him,  not  from  another  person,  but 
from  himself.  Under  the  new  dispensation  it  is  affirmed  by 
some  that  all  this  crime  is  not  only  not  forbidden,  but  sanc- 
tioned, and  that  those  who  committed  it,  instead  of  being  ar- 
raigned as  criminals,  were  permitted  to  continue  in  it,  to  hold 


CONFIRMED    IN   THE   NEW.  331 

slaves,  and,  of  course,  to  do  every  thing  with  them  that  by  the 
law  of  slavery  may  be  done,  to  hold  them  or  to  sell  them  as 
property  at  the  master's  sole  will  and  pleasure  ;  and  that  such 
stealers,  holders  and  sellers  of  men  as  property  wer^received 
into  the  Christian  church,  this  their  wickedness  not  BRng  for- 
bidden, but  received  and  sanctioned  along  with  them. 

Under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  the  right  of  servants 
to  escape  from  bondage  was  admitted,  and  men  were  forbid- 
den to  return  them  into  bondage  when  so  escaped,  but  were 
commanded  to  aid  and  to  shelter  them,  and  not  to  oppress 
them.  It  would  be  oppressing  them  in  the  highest  degree  to 
return  them  into  bondage;  and  the  law  of  God  that  they 
should  not  be  so  returned  proved  that  no  creature  had  any 
right  of  ownership  hi  them,  but  that  they  themselves  had  the 
most  perfect  right  of  ownership  in  themselves,  and  the  right 
to  take  themselves  away,  to  assert  and  take  their  own  free- 
dom. To  take  this  right  away  .from  them,  and  deliver  them 
up  into  slavery,  would  be  again  the  crime  of  stealing  them. 

Tinder  the  new  dispensation  it  is  asserted  by  the  apologists 
for  slavery  under  the  gospel,  that  slaves  must  not  escape  from 
their  masters,  that  they  have  no  right  to  their  freedom,  that 
if  they  do  escape  they  must  be  captured  and  sent  back  into 
slavery,  especially  if  their  owners  were  members  of  the  Chris- 
tian church.  It  is  asserted  that  both  they,  as  slaves,  and  their 
masters  as  their  owners,  were  together  members  of  Christian 
churches,  and  being  such,  having  been  admitted  as  such,  the 
law  of  Christianity  sanctions  slavery  as  right,  and  forbids  the 
slave  from  escaping  and  the  Christian  from  sheltering  him  if 
he  escapes. 

The  amount  of  this  is,  that  while,  under  Moses,  under  the  law 
of  God  as  given  by  Moses,  oppression  was  forbidden  as  sinful, 
under  Christ  oppression  is  baptized  and  sanctioned  as  a  Chris- 
tian grace.  Under  Moses  the  worst  kind  of  oppression,  that  of 
slavery  and  the  MAN-STEALING,  by  which  slavery  is  created  and 
maintained,  was  branded  as  a  crime  to  be  punished  by  death. 


332  LAW   AND    GOSPEL   ALIKE. 

Under  Christ  and  the  gospel  the  injunction  against  it  is  re- 
moved, and  it  is  not  only  consecrated  by  the  Christian  sacra- 
ments, the  seal  of  the  church's  sanction  being  put  upon  it,  but 
it  becomes  sinful  for  Christian  men  to  speak  against  it  as  sin. 
The  goapfc  of  Christ  becomes,  in  fact,  a  deliverance  to  do  those 
very  abominations  which  the  law  of  God  punished  with  death ; 
a  license  of  selfishness  and  cruelty,  a  freedom  to  sin,  and  to 
violate  the  law  of  love.  The  slaveholders  in  the  Christian 
church,  and  they  who  sanction  this  crime  as  consistent  with 
the  gospel,  as  a  crime  admitted  without  rebuke  into  the 
churches  of  the  New  Testament,  do  really  declare  that  the 
law  was  imperfect,  but  that  Jesus  was  made  a  surety  of  a 
better  testament,  a  high  priest  of  good  things  to  come,  of  a 
temple  of  liberty  for  the  enslaving  of  men,  into  which  we 
have  boldness  to  enter  as  into  the  holiest,  and  to  take  our 
slaves  with  us,  Christ  having  brought  in  this  better  hope,  this 
diviner  freedom,  blotting  out  the  hand-writing  of  ordinances 
that  was  against  us,  which  was  contrary  to  us,  and  took  it  out 
of  the  way,  nailing  it  to  his  cross. 

It  is  claimed  now,  that  whatever  might  be  the  meaning, 
or  necessity  of  the  Mosaic  laws  against  slavery,  or  in  behalf 
of  escaping  servants,  and  against  any  claim  of  their  masters 
for  their  restoration  ;  and  whatever  might  be  the  inspiration  of 
the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms  against  kidnapping  and  catching 
men,  or  holding  and  selling  them  as  merchandise,  or  the  com- 
mands of  God  to  give  liberty  to  the  enslaved,  to  break  every 
yoke,  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free ;  that,  nevertheless,  under 
the  new  law  of  love  in  the  New  Testament,  Christ  and  the 
gospel,  replace  and  sanctify  the  bonds,  and  forbid  them  to  be 
broken  ;  admitting  into  the  Christian  church  those  very  op- 
pressors that  under  the  law  were  excommunicated  from  it, 
and  those  very  realities  of  oppression  that  under  the  law  were 
branded  as  crimes  worthy  of  death. 

It  is  averred  that  Christ's  own  silence  on  the  subject  of 
this  sin  gives  consent  to  it.  Christ  was  silent  in  regard  to  the 


LAW   AND   GOSPEL  ALIKE.  333 

sin  of  sodomy,  in  regard  to  infanticide,  in  regard  to  idolatry  ; 
and  by  this  method  of  reasoning,  not  only  is  the  law  of  God 
against  these  crimes  abolished,  and  the  crimes  themselves 
made  innocent  by  such  silence,  but  he  that  speaks  against 
them,  when  Christ  did  not,  is  himself  guilty  of  a  presumptu- 
ous sin,  and  may  think  himself  happy  if  he  is  not  struck  with 
some  divine  judgment. 

Now,  dreadful  as  the  blasphemy  against  the  divine  inspira- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  has  been,  in  asserting  that  slavery 
was  sanctioned  of  God  there,  the  blasphemy  against  Christ  is 
worse,  in  asserting  that  the  cast  off  vices  under  God's  repro- 
bation in  the  laws  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  have  been  taken 
up,  endorsed,  patronized  and  received  to  Christian  communion 
and  credit,  in  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  What 
a  signal  and  an  execrable  iwpiety,  to  contend  that  he  who  an- 
nounced the  great  rule  of  life,  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  man 
should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them ;  and  declared  con- 
cerning the  law,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,  that 
upon  this,  along  with  the  law  of  supreme  love  to  God,  hang 
all  the  law  and  the  prophets,  would  and  did  at  the  same  time 
admit  into  the  Christian  church,  and  sanction  by  his  gospel, 
and  establish  as  a  custom  of  Christian  life,  the  greatest  viola- 
tion of  that  law ! 

To  maintain  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  would  set  up  as  a 
Christian  institution,  what  Moses  and  the  prophets  had  for- 
bidden on  pain  of  death,  what  they  had  put  in  the  same  cat- 
egory of  sin  with  the  worship  of  Moloch,  of  Baal,  of  Dagon, 
what  they  had  classified  with  sodomy  and  matricide,  is  to 
introduce  into  divine  revelation  a  profaneness  and  confusion 
worse  than  that  which  is  denounced  of  God  in  the  18th  of 
Leviticus  and  the  27th  of  Deuteronomy.  As  the  land  itself 
vomitoth  out  her  inhabitants  guilty  of  such  defilement,  so  the 
unsophisticated  moral  sense,  in  the  least  degree  enlightened 
above  the  ignorance  and  darkness  of  savage  life,  would  reject 
a  revelation  burdened  with  such  enormities,  especially  a  gospel 


334  LAW   PREACHED   BY  THE   GOSPEL. 

that  pretending  to  remove  men's  sins,  introduces  a  system  of 
avarice  and  cruelty,  and  admits  iniquities  as  elements  of  Chris- 
tian grace  and  fellowship,  that  even  a  previous,  imperfect  and 
preparatory  system  of  religion  cast  out  as  abominable  in  God's 
sight.  In  truth,  the  gospel  could  not  be  received  as  of  God, 
could  not  but  be  rejected,  under  such  burdens  of  impiety,  if 
the  moral  sense  of  men  did  not  assure  them  that  the  leprosies 
thus  foisted  into  the  authority  of  God's  word  are  a  corruption 
of  its  purity. 

In  the  first  preaching  of  the  gospel,  the  word  of  God  in  the 
Old  Testament  was  the  standard  of  Christ  and  the  apostles. 
It  was  their  storehouse  of  proofs,  texts,  doctrines,  arguments. 
Our  blessed  Lord  himself  was  wont  to  answer  questions  of 
conscience  and  of  casuistry  by  a  direct  appeal  to  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures.  What  is  written  in  the  law  ?  How 
readest  thou  ? 

Furthermore,  the  apostle  informed  Timothy  that  he  must 
take  the  law  in  its  particulars,  and  apply  it  to  HEN-STEALEKS, 
and  to  any  other  thing  contrary  to  sound  doctrine,  accord- 
ing to  the  gospel.  Nothing  could  be  plainer.  True  gospel 
preaching  was  that  which  applied  the  law  to  the  consciences 
of  men  to  bring  them  to  Christ. 

The  disciples  everywhere  were  commanded  to  search  the 
word  of  God,  and  to  hold  fast  what  they  found  there.  The 
oracles  of  God  were  to  be  consulted,  that  they  might  know 
his  will,  and  approve  the  things  that  were  more  excellent, 
being  instructed  out  of  the  law,  and  able  to  reprove  the 
darkness  of  the  world  and  the  sins  by  which  it  was  filled  with 
unrighteousness. 

It  was  the  prayer  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  Sanctify  them  by  thy 
truth  ;  thy  word  is  truth.  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon 
me,  because  he  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the 
poor ;  he  hath  sent  me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovering  of  sight  to  the 
blind  ;  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to  preach  the 


LAW   PREACHED   BY   THE   GOSPEL.  335 

acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  It  is  impossible  that  he  should 
habitually,  in  the  synagogues,  expound  such  passages  as  the 
Cist  chapter  of  Isaiah,  and  instruct  his  disciples  to  preserve 
a  politic  silence  as  to  the  sins  which  those  passages  rebuke,  as 
to  the  oppressions  which  they  forbid,  since  it  was  plain  to  all 
that  the  58th  and  59th  chapters  particularized  the  very  sins 
of  which  the  61st  proclaimed  the  remedy.  He  never  taught 
his  disciples  to  be  afraid  of  announcing  to  the  whole  world 
under  the  gospel  any  thing  that  the  prophets  were  command- 
ed to  communicate  under  the  law.  On  the  contrary,  "  What 
I  tell  you  in  darkness,  that  speak  ye  in  light,  and  what  ye 
hear  in  the  ear,  that  preach  ye  upon  the  housetops.  And 
fear  not  them  which  kill  the  body,  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the 
sonl." 

He  would  not  permit  his  preachers  to  consult  human  preju- 
dices, or  to  take  human  laws  or  customs  for  their  guide  in 
preaching.  He  would  not  suffer  the  word  of  God  to  be  made 
of  none  effect  by  human  precept  or  tradition.  "  In  vain  do 
they  worship  me,  teaching  for  doctrines  the  commandments 
of  men."  The  teaching  of  human  slavery,  the  admission  of 
it  into  the  church  of  God,  the  implication  of  its  just  authority, 
would  have  set  the  gospel  against  the  law,  the  morality  of  the 
New  Testament  against  that  of  the  Old,  the  conscience  in- 
structed by  the  apostles  against  that  instructed  of  God  in  his 
word.  The  admission  of  human  slavery,  the  wickedest  crea- 
tion of  human  law,  is  one  of  the  most  dreadful  examples  on 
record  of  making  the  word  of  God  of  none  effect,  not  merely 
by  the  power  of  tradition,  but  the  licensing  of  crime ;  one 
of  the  most  sweeping  and  destructive  instances  ever  known 
of  the  corruption  of  piety  and  the  debasement  of  God's  wor- 
ship, by  teaching  for  doctrines  the  commandments  of  men  ; 
nay,  it  is  the  doctrines  of  devils  set  in  the  place  of  God's 
teachings ;  for  human  slavery,  in  its  perfection,  defiles  and 
destroys  all  the  commandments  of  the  decalogue.  If  there 
were  this  fatal  incongruity  and  opposition  between  the  Old 


336  CONCEALMENT  FOBBIDDEN. 

and  New  Testaments  on  so  vital  a  question  as  that  of  the  na- 
ture of  sin  or  its  treatment ;  if  the  Old  were  distinguished  by 
the  fear  of  offending  God,  but  the  New  by  the  fear  of  offend- 
ing man  ;  if  the  Old  spoke  out  fearlessly  against  men's  sins, 
while  the  New  took  up  the  line  of  a  cautious  policy,  making 
the  great  rule  of  preaching  the  truth  to  be  the  rule  of  giving 
none  offense  to  any  man,  and  carefully  concealing  such  truths 
as  might  produce  disturbance  ;  then  would  the  proof  of  a  di- 
vine inspiration  be  greatly  weakened,  if  not  wholly  destroyed, 
and  one  half  of  God's  word  would  be  effectually  neutralized  by 
the  other.  But  there  is  no  such  imperfection,  no  such  contra- 
diction. 

On  the  contrary,  Paul  expressly  denounces  aU  such  carnal, 
fearful,  dishonest  policy,  abhorring  either  the  concealment  or 
corruption  of  the  word  of  God,  by  flattering  words  and  the 
cloak  of  covetousness.  "  We  have  renounced  the  hidden 
things  of  dishonesty  ;  not  walking  in  craftiness,  nor  handling 
the  word  of  God  deceitfully,  but  by  manifestation  of  the 
truth  commending  ourselves  to  every  man's  conscience  in 
the  sight  of  God."  It  was  the  very  object  of  God,  by  the 
power  of  the  truth,  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  produce  a  fear- 
less, holy,  testifying  church;  and  he  committed  the  truth 
to  his  people,  with  the  assurance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  accom- 
pany it,  that  they  might  conquer  the  world  in  righteousness. 
What  a  monstrous  conclusion,  therefore,  to  suppose  that 
through  the  fear  of  persecution  or  disturbance  God  would 
have  the  preachers  of  the  gospel  keep  back  or  veil  the 
righteousness  of  his  word !  How  absurd  to  suppose  that 
the  work  of  the  new  inspiration  would  be  to  make  men 
afraid  of  the  old  !  that  the  work  of  the  Comforter  would  be 
to  teach  men  to  hide  what  God  had  revealed,  and  to  keep 
back,  from  a  cunning  expediency,  through  fear  of  trouble, 
what  he  had  instructed  the  old  prophets  to  proclaim  in  the 
face  of  death ! 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

THE  ARGUMENT  OF  SILENCE  CONSIDERED. — THE  SAME  ARGUMENT  AS  TO  OTHER  MONSTROS- 
ITIES UNDER  EOMAN  LAW. — INFANTICIDE. — WIVES  AS  PROPERTY.— NEW  TESTAMENT 
REPROBATION  OP  SLAVERY  FROM  THE  OLD. — THE  DIVINE  KEPROBATION  OF  AMERICAN 
SLAVERY,  AND  LIGHT  AS  TO  OUR  DCTV. 

FROM  the  large  space  given  to  the  denunciation  of  the  sin 
of  oppression  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  from  the  fact  of  the 
crime  of  slavery  having  been  extirpated  from  the  land  of 
Judea,  we  should  not  expect  to  find  it  often  referred  to,  or 
by  name  prohibited,  in  the  New  Testament.  If  we  should 
find  a  perfect  silence  in  regard  to  it,  this  silence  could  not  be 
pleaded  in  its  favor.  If  the  Saviour  never  encountered  it, 
there  would  be  no  occasion  for  him  to  denounce  it  by  name. 
It  would  be  a  monstrous  conclusion  to  aver,  on  this  account, 
that  he  did  not  agree  in  the  reprobation  of  it  by  the  word  of 
God  in  the  Old  Testament.  If  the  mere  absence  of  a  pro- 
hibition of  any  sin  by  the  Saviour  and  his  apostles  is  to  be 
taken  for  a  justification  of  it,  there  is  almost  no  crime  that  in 
some  form  may  not  be  justified.  When  John  was  beheaded 
by  Herod,  the  disciples  of  the  murdered  prophet  took  up  his 
body  and  buried  it,  and  went  and  told  Jesus.  Not  a  word 
did  he  say  in  condemnation  of  that  murder.  Are  we  there- 
fore to  conclude  that  an  oath  to  commit  murder,  and  a  murder 
committed  for  the  keeping  of  such  an  oath,  are  right,  or  that 
in  a  ruler  they  are  excusable  or  acceptable  before  God,  or  that, 
when  we  see  such  crimes  committed,  we  are  to  keep  silence 
in  regard  to  them,  and  on  no  account  to  rebuke  them  ?  Or 
would  it  be  proper  to  conclude  that  Christ  and  his  apostles 
never  taught  any  thing  against  particular  sins  but  what  is 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament  ? 


338  INIQUITIES   OF  KOMAN   LAW. 

The  three  great  relations  in  private  life,  says  Blackstone, 
are,  1.  That  of  master  and  servant ;  2.  That  of  husband  and 
wife  ;  3.  That  of  parent  and  child.  He  then  goes  on  to  con- 
sider the  responsibilities  and  duties,  the  rights  and  obligations 
of  all  these  parties.* 

Under  the  Roman  law,  slavery  being  legitimate,  the  slave 
had  no  rights,  and  the  master  could  treat  him  as  a  thing  or  a 
brute  beast  at  pleasure.  Under  the  same  law  the  husband 
had  almost  unlimited  control  over  the  wife,  exercising  the  au- 
thority of  an  absolute  despot,  even  in  the  matter  of  life  and 
death.  By  the  same  system  the  power  of  the  father  over  his 
children  was  that  of  the  master  over  his  slaves ;  he  could  sell 
his  children,  could  imprison,  scourge  or  punish  them  in  any 
manner,  however  atrocious,  even  after  they  were  grown  up.f 
He  might  decree  them  to  death  when  born,  if  he  preferred 
not  to  rear  them,  infanticide  being  thus  as  legitimate  an  ele- 
ment of  paternal  authority  as  the  breeding  of  slaves  is  of  the 
domestic  slavery  in  the  United  States.  The  children  were 
considered,  like  slaves,  part  and  parcel  of  the  goods  of  their 
father,  so  that  they  might  be  disposed  of  by  him  just  like 
slaves  or  cattle.  With  respect  to  the  right  of  sale,  they  were 
in  a  worse  position  than  even  slaves,  in  that  they  were  re- 
leased from  his  power  only  after  a  thrice  repeated  act  of  sell- 
ing. Likewise,  "  as  any  thing  became  a  person's  property,  by 
being  possessed  by  him  for  a  certain  space  of  time,  so  a  wife 
became  the  lawful  property  of  her  husband."  He  could  re- 
pudiate her  at  pleasure.^ 

Now,  in  eveiy  one  of  these  relations,  the  Roman  laws  and 
customs  stood  point  blank  opposed  against  the  divine  law. 
In  neither  of  them  could  any  other  rule  be  right  than  that  of 
a  divine  revelation.  In  every  one  of  them  there  is  clear  and 
explicit  instruction  in  the  Old  Testament.  If  now,  in  the  New 

*  BLACKSTONE'S  Comm.,  ch.  iv. 

f  GIBBON'S  Decline  and  Fall,  ch.  xliv. 

j  Fuss'  Roman  Antiquities.    Sec.  82,  476,  481. 


SILENCE   CAN   NOT   SANCTION   SIN.  339 

Testament,  the  filial  relation  or  the  maiTiage  relation  is  recog- 
nized as  of  God,  and  its  duties  are  enjoined  under  his  au- 
thority, while,  nevertheless,  the  sacred  writers  are  perfectly 
silent  as  to  the  abuses  of  those  relations,  and  the  crimes  com- 
mitted against  them  under  the  law  of  the  Romans,  will  such 
silence  answer  for  the  allowance  and  sanctifi cation  of  such 
abuses  ?  Can  an  argument  be  sustained  that  because  neither 
our  Lord  nor  the  apostles  denounced  the  despotism  of  the 
father  over  the  child,  and  of  the  husband  over  the  wife,  there- 
fore the  divinely  appointed  paternal  and  marital  authority  in- 
cluded and  sanctioned  that  despotism  ?  Could  it  be  argued, 
because  wives  are  commanded  to  obey  their  husbands,  that 
therefore  the  Roman  institution  of  marriage  was  ordained  of 
God  ?  or  because  children  are  to  obey  their  parents,  therefore 
the  fathers  have  the  right  to  sell  or  put  to  death  their  chil- 
dren ?  No  more  can  an  argument  be  sustained  that  because 
our  Lord  and  his  apostles  taught  servants  to  obey  their  mas- 
ters, therefore  they  were  the  property  of  their  masters ;  or 
because  our  Lord  and  his  apostles  did  not  say  that  Roman 
slavery  was  wrong,  therefore  both  it  and  American  slavery 
are  right,  and  have  the  sanction  of  the  Almighty. 

Yet  this  very  argument  of  silence  is  relied  upon  for  the 
defense  of  slavery,  as  being  a  system  not  inconsistent  with 
Christianity !  It  is  affirmed  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  did  not 
rebuke  slavery,  and  therefore  it  is  presumption  in  any  human 
being  to  denounce  it  as  sin.  Neither  did  the  Lord  Jesus  re- 
buke idolatry.  These  apologists  for  slavery  probably  are  not 
aware  that  never  in  one  of  the  evangelists  is  to  be  found  a 
word  against  idolatry,  no  testimony  of  Christ  against  it,  nor 
any  direction  to  preach  his  gospel  against  it.  Docs  this  prove 
that  therefore  idolatry  is  not  inconsistent  with  Christianity, 
or  that  because  Christ  did  not  denounce  idolaters,  therefore 
it  is  presumption  in  us  to  proclaim  the  gospel  against  them  ? 
Does  this  prove  that  true  piety  includes  idolatry  as  one  of  its 
elements  ?  Just  as  clearly  it  proves  this,  nf>  <™.r  Lord's 


340  SILENCE   NO   SANCTION   OF   SIN. 

silence  on  the  subject  of  slavery  proves  that  the  true  divinely 
appointed  system  of  domestic  service  includes  the  right  of 
property  in  man,  the  right  of  holding  men  as  slaves. 

The  most  earnest  defenders  of  the  Bible  against  the  charge 
of  sanctioning  slavery,  instead  of  throwing  themselves  upon 
the  truth,  instead  of  demonstrating  the  reprobation  of  slavery, 
have  resorted  to  the  supposition  of  a  most  unworthy  expedi- 
ency in  concealing  the  judgment  of  God  against  this  sin. 
Even  Mr.  Barnes  has  intimated  that  if  the  apostles  had  pro- 
claimed in  so  many  words  that  slavery  was  a  heinous  sin  in 
the  sight  of  God,  they  would  have  been  regarded  as  disturb- 
ers of  the  public  peace,  etc.  If  it  had  been  conceded  to  be  a 
wrong,  then  the  apostles  might  with  true  expediency  have  de- 
nounced it  as  sinful,  for  it  would  be  plain  that  it  could  not  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment.  But  it  is  argued  that  while  it  was 
not  yet  admitted  to  be  wrong,  it  was  expedient  for  them  to 
avoid  its  reprobation  !* 

Now  it  is  unaccountable  that  the  great  fact  should  be  so  com- 
pletely overlooked,  that  in  the  very  reference  of  their  hearers 
to  the  word  and  will  of  God,  on  this  subject,  they  did  repro- 
bate slavery  ;  they  could  not  possibly  avoid  it.  They  did  this  as 
plainly  as  they  reprobated  murder.  Paul  did  it  when  he  in- 
structed Timothy  how  to  preach  the  gospel.  He  referred  him 
back  to  the  law  of  God  against  MJEN-STEALERS.  He  referred  him 
to  that  law  as  in  full  force.  Indeed,  to  what  and  to  whom  does 
our  Lord  Jesus  himself  continually  refer  all  men,  as  the  rule 
of  duty,  the  guide  of  life,  under  all  circumstances  ?  to  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures,  to  the  law  of  God,  to  the  words 
of  God  by  Moses  and  the  prophets.  When  a  man  became  a 
Christian,  if  he  were  a  Jew  he  knew  that  slavery  was  for- 
bidden ;  if  he  were  a  Pagan,  he  was  referred  to  the  word  of 
God  for  instruction.  He  could  not  be  a  Christian  without 
studying  that  word,  and  in  it  he  would  find  that  the  oppres- 
sion of  his  servants  in  any  way  was  forbidden  of  God,  and 

*  BARNES  on  Slavery,  page  291,  etc. 


THE  RULE  AND  THE  EVIDENCE.  341 

that  the  holding  of  them  as  slaves,  as  property,  was  forbidden 
on  pain  of  death. 

Men  say,  "  Show  us  some  instances  of  dealing  with  slave- 
holders in  the  apostolic  churches.  If  we  only  had  one  such 
case  it  would  be  a  guide." 

The  epistle  to  Philemon  is  precisely  such  a  case.  It  was 
given  for  that  very  purpose.  If  Onesimus  were  once  a  skive, 
then  it  is  incontrovertibly  a  declaration  that  he  could  no  longer 
be  held  as  such.  If  Philemon  had  been  a  slaveholder  while  a 
Pagan,  it  is  plain  that  he  could  not  be  such  as  a  Christian. 

If  men  will  resist  such  evidence,  or  distrust  it,  in  support 
of  a  practice  known  to  be  wrong,  stronger  evidence  would  be 
of  little  avail.  It  is  one  of  the  qualities  of  divine  light  not 
to  force  itself  upon  the  soul ;  but  if,  having  eyes,  men  see 
not,  and  ears,  they  hear  not,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded 
though  one  rose  from  the  dead. 

God  did  rebuke  and  forbid  this  iniquity  plainly  enough. 
And  now  for  men  to  say,  It  is  not  set  down  by  name,  there- 
fore it  is  not  sinful,  argues  not  doubt,  but  obstinate  blind- 
ness. 

When  the  crime  of  slavery  disappears  from  the  world  it 
will  not  be  imagined  that  the  Bible  ever  sanctioned  it  in  any 
way.  It  is  not  named  by  name  in  the  New  Testament,  neither 
is  it  in  the  Old  Testament ;  but  the  act  in  the  Old  Testament 
is  denounced,  and  this  edict  against  it  is  referred  to  in  the 
New.  One  whole  epistle  on  this  subject  is  enough  ;  and  if 
in  any  previous  epistles  it  had  not  been  referred  to,  it  would 
be  because  the  divine  Spirit  knew  that  that  epistle  was  to  be 
added.  The  principles  laid  down  forbade  slavery  utterly,  and 
rendered  it  impossible.  What  need  of  any  thing  more  ?  In 
the  first  churches  not  a  slaveholder  was  to  be  found.  Jewish 
masters  were  not  slaveholders,  and  they  certainly  did  not  be- 
come such  on  becoming  Christians. 

To  teach  a  sin  as  expedient,  or  to  leave  a  gross  iniquity 
doubtful,  would  be  to  destroy  the  possibility  of  holiness. 


342  BIGHTEOUSNESS   IMMUTABLE. 

God  will  bear  with  a  small  amount  of  piety  ;  but  he  will  not 
endure  a  corrupted  piety,  a  perversion  of  it.  He  can  save  by 
a  little  truth ;  but  he  will  not  endure  error  in  the  place  of 
truth.  He  can  endure  with  much  long  suffering  the  vessels 
of  wrath  fitted  for  destruction  ;  but  when  sin  comes  to  be 
vaunted  as  holiness,  when  it  is  taken  into  the  church,  it  is 
death.  If  a  wickedness  be  fallen  into,  but  admitted,  con- 
fessed, it  may  be  pardoned  ;  but  when  it  is  taught  as  of  God, 
when  doctrines  of  devils  are  boasted  to  have  the  sanction  of 
the  Saviour,  then  indeed  it  is  time  for  God  to  work.  If  the 
foundations  be  destroyed  what  can  the  righteous  do  ? 

Here  then,  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  we  find,  on  this 
subject,  the  leading  elementary  statutes  laid  down,  the  neces- 
sary result  of  God's  own  justice,  and  the  determination  of  what 
is  just  and  right  among  men.  It  is  impossible  that  these 
principles  can  be  just  and  righteous  in  one  age,  and  unjust, 
unrighteous  and  impracticable  in  another,  or  just  and  right- 
eous for  the  government  of  a  nation  of  two  millions  of 
people,  but  unjust  and  unrighteous  for  a  nation  of  thirty 
millions.  It  is  impossible  that  what  in  God's  view  was  just 
and  benevolent  between  man  and  man  eighteen  hundred  years 
before  the  coming  of  Christ,  can  be  unjust  and  unbenevolent, 
or  its  obligation  nullified,  eighteen  hundred  years  after  Christ. 
But  if  there  were  any  doubt,  the  matter  is  decided  by  distinct 
reference  to  these  very  laws  as  our  rule  of  duty  under  the 
gospel ;  and  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  in  all  their  parts 
and  detail,  are  said  to  have  been  given  and  written  for  our  in- 
struction, and  to  be  profitable  for  our  discovery  and  applica- 
tion of  God's  righteousness. 

And  when  an  apostle  by  divine  inspiration  commands  mas- 
ters everywhere  to  give  unto  their  servants  that  which  is  just 
and  equal,  it  is  not  merely  that  which  the  natural  conscience, 
uninstructed  by  the  divine  word,  alfirms  or  intimates  to  be 
just  and  equal,  which  would  be  a  rule  unreliable,  uncertain 
and  variable  in  the  extreme,  differing  according  to  every 


THE   WORD   FOE   ALL   TIME.  343 

man's  moral  character  and  notions  of  expediency,  but  that 
which  the  word  of  God  declares  and  defines  to  be  just  and 
equal,  that  which  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  reveal  and 
enjoin  on  this  very  subject  as  the  will  of  God.  And  the  very 
first  article  of  that  justice  and  equality  or  equity  is,  that  no 
man  shall  hold  or  treat  any  other  man  as  property,  that  no 
human  being  shall  make  merchandise  of  man.  And  a  second 
great  ruling  article  of  justice  and  equality  from  masters  to 
servants  is,  that  no  man  shall  use  his  servant's  service  with- 
out wages,  stipulated  wages,  according  to  mutual  bargain 
and  agreement,  on  grounds  of  equality  and  justice  on  both 
sides. 

It  is  beyond  question  that  the  minuteness  and  particularity 
of  detail  in  the  statutes  and  commentaries  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, on  this  great  commanding  subject  of  human  economy 
and  morals,  were  intended  for  all  future  time,  and  not  for  the 
Jews  or  the  Jewish  dispensation  merely.  Not  more  certain  is 
it  that  the  profound  and  inexhaustible  mines  of  coal,  now 
being  wrought  for  the  wants  of  the  world's  inhabitants,  were 
laid  up  by  creative  and  forsecing  wisdom  for  the  supply  of 
those  wants,  and  were  designed  to  be  used,  as  men  are  now 
using  them,  for  the  progress  of  civilization  and  social  comfort, 
than  that  the  instructive,  comprehensive,  far-reaching  princi- 
ples and  laws  in  reference  to  domestic  service,  inwrought  in 
the  revelation  of  the  Old  Testament,  were  set  there  for  the 
instruction  and  guidance  of  this  present  age.  And  they  are 
as  much  more  important  for  our  instruction  and  guidance 
now,  and  as  much  more  obligatory  on  us  for  examination  and 
obedience,  than  upon  the  Jews  merely,  as  the  character  and 
welfare  of  a  hundred  millions  of  people  are  more  important 
than  of  two  millions.  And  the  great  obligation  of  righteous- 
ness resting  now  upon  the  church  of  God  and  the  ministry  is 
that  of  promulgating  anew  and  enforcing  in  all  their  spiritual 
and  universal  authority  these  denied  and  impiously  violated 


344  A   RACK    OF   STRANGERS. 

principles  and  laws  of  common  morality  and  justice  from 
man  to  man. 

We  have  among  us  a  people  branded  as  a  strange  race,  a 
race  set  apart  by  our  laws,  prejudices,  judicial  decisions,  for 
moral  assassination  and  destruction  ;  a  race  crushed  beneath 
the  most  horrible,  hopeless,  galling  system  of  perpetual  slavery 
the  world  ever  knew  ;  a  race  consigned  by  our  very  religion 
— perverted  for  the  purpose — as  the  subjects  of  avarice  and 
profitable  lust ;  a  race  dehumanized,  disfranchised  of  the  very- 
personality  of  manhood,  for  the  purposes  of  uttermost  and 
unimpeded  oppression ;  branded  by  law  as  things,  that  they 
may  not  have  the  rights  and  protection  of  persons,  but  ad- 
mitted by  a  fiction  as  persons,  that  they  may  be  the  subjects 
of  such  punishment  and  injury  as  mere  things  could  not  be  ; 
persons  when  their  owners  can  be  benefited  by  the  fiction, 
things  when  themselves  could  have  any  defence  against  their 
owners,  by  being  considered  as  persons. 

"We  have  this  race  of  strangers,  stolen  at  first,  flung  by 
piracy  upon  our  shores,  as  smuggled  goods  might  be  thrown 
upon  the  beach  by  smugglers,  to  be  snatched  up  and  sold  by 
shore  thieves,  complex  in  the  crime ;  stolen  at  first,  propa- 
gated afterwards,  and  the  race  a  stolen  race  ;  every  babe  new 
born,  new  stolen,  branded  from  the  birth  as  property.  We 
have  this  race,  from  whom  we  tear  by  human  law  the  divine 
seals  of  marriage,  and  of  parental  and  filial  love  and  obliga- 
tions ;  burning  and  searing  from  out  even  the  mother's  soul, 
by  the  sacrament  of  property,  by  the  hot  iron  of  that  con- 
viction from  the  birth  of  belonging  to  another,  even  the  ma- 
ternal instinct,  so  as  to  reduce  it  to  the  level  of  the  mere 
animal  impulse  "of  the  hen  or  the  partridge."*  We  have  this 
race,  whom  we  have  so  unnaturally  defrauded  even  of  the  intelli- 
gence in  which  brutes  might  be  nurtured,  and  so  violently  and 
perfectly  divorced  from  that  which  belongs  to  their  very  nature 
by  the  ordinance  of  God  as  his  children,  that  when  they  grow 

*See  the  testimony  in  the  South  Side  View  of  Slavery,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Adams. 


CUE   DUTY   TO   THEM. 


345 


tip  under  our  nurture  and  admonition,  under  the  training  of 
the  slave  system,  they  are  not  able  to  conceive  the  nature  of 
the  parental  or  the  filial  relation,  or  the  meaning  of  the  sacred 
word  father  !* 

We  have  this  race,  concerning  which,  the  sentiment  of  per- 
verted justice,  the  instruction  issued  from  the  highest  tri- 
bunal of  justice  in  our  country,  is  just  this,  that  Hack  men 
have  no  rights  that  white  men  are  bound  to  respect ;  and  the 
social  despotism  and  practice  growing  out  of  this  judicial  in- 
struction, the  practical  treatment  of  this  devoted  race,  is  the 
carrying  into  demonstration  of  the  theory  that  they  are  stuff 
only  for  slaves,  the  lineal,  legitimate  subjects  of  interminable, 
unalleviated,  remorseless  cruelty,  hopeless  because  hereditary, 
and  remorseless  by  the  very  aid  of  the  church  and  its  minis- 
ters sanctifying  it  with  unction,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ; 
pacifying  and  stupifying  men's  consciences  with  lies,  daubing 
the  walls  and  palaces  of  this  iniquity  with  their  untempered 


*  ADAMS'  South  Side  View. — The 
infamous  maxim,  partus  sequilur  ven- 
trem,  is  a  manufacture  of  heathen 
slave  law,  adopted  from  Paganism, 
and  baptized  by  slaveholding  church- 
es in  the  name  of  Christ.  It  is  as- 
serted by  Christian  theologians  to  be 
a  maxim  of  nature,  justice,  religion 
and  divine  providence  !  Yet  the  very 
code  of  Roman  law,  out  of  which  this 
diabolic  doctrine  is  drawn,  to  be  trans- 
figured with  the  sacredness  of  the 
Christian  religion,  contained  also  the 
admission  that  "  all  men  by  the  law 
of  nature  are  born  in  freedom  ;"  and 
slavery  was  defined  as  being  "  con- 
trary to  natural  right,"  and  capable 
of  being  constituted  only  by  positive 
law  against  the  law  of  nature  and  of 
right.  Moreover,  "  in  order  to  deter- 
mine the  question  of  a  child's  free- 
dom or  servitude,  the  whole  period  of 
gestation  was  taken  into  view  by  the 


Roman  jurists ;  and  if  at  any  time 
between  conception  and  birth  the 
mother  had  been  for  one  instant  free, 
the  law,  by  a  humane  fiction,  supposed 
the  birth  to  Imve  taken  place  then, 
and  held  the  infant  to  be  free  born." 
From  all  such  mixtures  of  humanity, 
the  slave  laws  of  Rome,  as  adopted 
by  a  Christian  people,  are  purified, 
and  no  instinct  of  benevolence  is 
suffered  to  co-exist  with  them ;  and 
that  which  even  the  natural  con- 
science of  a  Pagan  condemned  aa 
against  nature  and  right,  is  declared 
to  be  the  perfection  of  righteousness 
both  natural  and  divine. — REPORT  of 
Synod  of  North  Carolina  on  Slavery» 
1851 ;  SOUTHERN  PRESBYTERIAN  RE- 
VIEW, 1857;  GIBBON'S  Decline  and 
Fall,  chapter  xliv. ;  EDWARDS  on 
Roman  Slavery,  Bib.  Rep.,  vol.  6,  p. 
419;  BECKER,  Rom.  Ant,  Slavery, 
Bib.  Sacra,  vol.  2.  POTTER,  Gr.  Ant. 


346  A   EACE   OF   STBANGEES. 

mortar,  and  promising  peace  and  prosperity  in  such  wicked- 
ness. 

We  have  this  race,  a  race  ot  strangers,  and  it  is  inevitable 
that  we  ask  what  are  the  principles  and  rules  of  conduct  which 
God  would  have  us  adopt  towards  them.  What  is  our  duty 
to  them  in  God's  sight  ?  We  turn  to  the  Old  Testament  for 
light,  and  we  find  it  written,  "  The  stranger  that  dwelleth 
with  you  shall  be  unto  you  as  one  born  among  you ;  AND 
THOU  SHALT  LOVE  HIM  AS  THYSELF.  Cursed  be  he  that  per- 
verteth  the  judgment  of  the  stranger." 

We  then  say,  by  the  logic  of  the  gospel,  by  the  inevitable 
enlargement,  advance  and  comprehension  of  love  from  the 
Old  Testament  to  the  New,  that  whatever  obligations  of 
tenderness,  charity  and  kindness  were  imposed  of  God  in 
reference  to  strangers  upon  the  Hebrews,  are  double  upon 
ourselves  ;  for  all  are  one  in  Christ,  and  all  brethren,  neither 
Barbarian  nor  Scythian,  nor  bond,  nor  free,  being  any  other 
than  brethren,  to  be  loved  and  treated  alike  as  we,  in  similar 
cases,  would  be  treated  ourselves.  Would  we  be  held  our- 
selves as  slaves  ?  Would  we,  under  any  circumstances,  con- 
sent or  be  willing  to  be  the  property  of  other  men,  as  our 
owners  ?  If  not,  the  logic  of  the  gospel,  the  logic  of  love, 
declares  our  condemnation,  if  we  hold  others  in  slavery.  Out 
of  thine  own  mouth  will  I  judge  thee,  thou  wicked  servant.* 

*  On  the  wickedness  of  the  maxim,  spared  to  raise  a  cry  against  Mr.  "Wil- 
partus  sequitur  ventrem,  See  STROUD,  berforce  and  the  other  friends  of  the 
Laws  relating  to  Slavery,  ch.  i,  and  slaves  in  this  country.  It  has  become 
Prop.  12,  p.  99 ;  also  GOODELL'S  extremely  difficult  to  counteract  the 
American  Slave  Code,  83  and  248.  effects  of  this  powerful  combination. 
Compare  a  passage  on  the  atrocity  of  No  man  can  venture  to  write  in  de- 
slave  legislation,  in  the  diary  of  SIR  fence  of  the  negroes  without  exposing 
SAMUEL  ROMILLY  (Memoirs,  voL  iii.,  himself  to  a  prosecution."  This  was 
pp.  337-343).  "No  pains  have  been  written  as  late  as  1818. 


CHAPTER    XXX  . 

WITH  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  EXISTENCE,  ANT  NEW  COMMAND  AGAINST  SLAVERY  UK- 
NECESSARY. — THE  ABSENCE  OF  SLAVERY  THE  NATURAL  RESULT  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 
LAWS. — BUT  IF  SLAVERY  HAD  BEEN  SANCTIONED  OF  GOD,  IT  WOULD  HAVE  FILLED 
THE  LAND. — THE  JURISPRUDENCE  OF  THE  LAND  WOULD  HAVE  BEEN  OCCUPIED  wmi 
IT. — THE  GOSPELS  WOULD  HAVE  BERN  FILLED  WITH  PROOFS  AND  PICTURES  OF  IT. — 
A  STATE  or  MORALS  WOULD  HAVE  BEEN  FOUND  SUCH  AS  GROWS  OUT  OF  IT. 

WE  shall  show  that  no  argument  can  be  set  np  in  behalf 
of  slavery  from  the  Greek  words  used  to  describe  the  cus- 
tomary domestic  service,  as  it  was  encountered  by  our  Lord 
and  his  disciples  in  Judea.  With  the  Mosaic  laws  and  the 
prophets  as  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice  for  the  nation,  and 
with  the  instructive  record  in  Jeremiah  xxxiv.,  slavery  could 
not  be  tolerated.  It  can  not  be  denied  that  the  laws  against 
man-stealing,  holding  and  selling,  were  in  full  force.  The  laws 
against  making  merchandise  of  man  prevented  every  possibil- 
ity of  the  slave  traffic,  which  certainly  did  not  exist.  The  law 
forbidding  the  restoration  of  fugitives  was  equally  sacred, 
equally  binding,  and  there  is  no  proof  of  its  having  been  dis- 
regarded or  obsolete.  The  laws  for  the  benevolent  treatment 
of  strangers  were  the  same  as  at  the  beginning ;  precepts  as 
well  known  as  any  in  the  decalogue,  and  very  distinctly  re- 
ferred to  by  our  Saviour. 

It  was  therefore  not  necessary  in  the  Gospels  to  issue  any 
new  commands  against  the  crime  of  slavery,  with  the  pages 
of  the  prophets  and  the  law  blazing  with  denunciations  against 
every  one  of  its  elements,  and  the  original  crime  of  slave- 
making  condemned,  along  with  the  crime  of  murder,  to  the 
punishment  of  death.  The  possible  existence  of  slavery 
under  the  Gospel,  among  those  who  admitted  the  authority 


348  JTJDEA   FREE   FROM   SLAVERY. 

of  the  Scriptures,  was  not  even  supposed ;  and  the  instruc- 
tions given  to  masters  in  the  New  Testament  rendered  such 
an  enormity  as  a  Christian  slaveholder,  a  man  claiming  prop- 
erty in  man,  and  yet  pretending  to  be  a  Christian,  impos- 
sible. 

From  the  latest  utterances  of  Jeremiah,  Zephaniah,  Zecha- 
riah,  Nehemiah  and  Malachi,  under  the  solemn  impression 
produced  by  their  assurances  of  vengeance  from  the  living 
God  against  an  oppressing  nation  and  people,  we  should  ex- 
pect to  find  just  what  we  do  find  in  Judea,  under  our  Lord's 
ministry,  an  entire  absence  of  any  indication  of  the  existence 
or  the  practice  of  slaveholding.  We  should  expect  to  find 
the  very  system  of  hired  labor,  and  of  voluntary  domestic 
service,  which  we  do  find.  Our  Saviour  no  more  encounters 
slavery  than  he  does  idolatry  in  the  land.  And  the  fact  of  its 
absence  from  Judea,  the  fact  of  the  singular  freedom  of  this 
people  from  this  one  sin,  with  all  its  train  of  abominations, 
while  the  whole  Roman  world  was  filled  with  it,  and  groaning 
under  its  oppressions,  would  of  itself  go  far  to  prove  that  it 
must  have  been  forbidden  in  the  Jewish  law.  Nothing  less 
than  the  strictest  divine  prohibition  could  have  kept  it  out, 
could  have  kept  the  avaricious  nobles  and  landholders  from  a 
traffic  so  lucrative  as  that  in  slaves,  from  a  claim  so  infernally 
attractive  as  that  of  property  in  man. 

If  God  had,  by  divine  revelation,  given  over  a  race  of  hu- 
man beings  into  the  possession  of  another  race,  to  be  enslaved 
by  them,  and  their  posterity  converted  into  chattels,  stamped 
and  used  as  property,  bought,  sold,  conveyed  as  merchandise, 
put  into  social  pens,  or  contuberniums,  and  propagated  as  the 
most  valuable  of  all  stock ;  the  stock,  its  increase,  and  the 
privilege  and  the  right  of  breeding,  being  constituted  and 
transmitted  as  an  inheritance  for  the  children  and  children's 
children,  of  the  dominant  race,  to  the  latest  generation,  thus 
appointed  as  slaveholders  by  the  Almighty ;  if  such  had  been 
the  will  of  a  pretended  divine  revelation,  accepted  as  such, 


JUDEA  FEES  FROM  SLAVERY.  349 

there  would  have  been  some  trace  left  of  the  operation  of  such 
an  edict,  such  a  will ;  there  must  have  been  some  remnant  of 
an  estate  so  vast,  so  inalienable,  so  multiplying. 

A  property  thus  sacred  and  self-propagating,  devised  and 
appointed  of  God  as  a  legacy  to  his  own  chosen  people,  could 
not  be,  or  become,  like  other  riches,  which  take  to  themselves 
wings  ;  they  could  no  more  fly  away  and  disappear,  or  evap- 
orate, than  the  landed  estates  of  Judea  could  go  off  in  ele- 
mental smoke,  or  the  mountain  ranges  of  Horeb  and  Sinai 
could  soar  away  on  wings  as  eagles.  The  land  would  have 
been  full  of  this  heaven-sanctioned  human  wealth ;  for  of  all 
kinds  of  wealth  and  modes  of  money  making,  this  would  have 
constituted  the  sole  exception  to  the  great  and  terrible 
rule,  that  it  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of 
a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

Although  a  merchant  with  his  camel  could  not,  yet  a  drove 
of  slaves,  a  procession  reaching  from  the  open  door  of  the 
ark  on  Ararat  to  the  river  of  Egypt  and  the  last  day,  would 
be  "  bound  for  the  kingdom,"  and  the  owner  would  drive  in, 
as  God's  under  shepherd,  in  the  care  of  a  property  more  sa- 
cred than  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills.  The  love  of  money 
in  this  shape — an  inheritance  devised  of  God  and  sent  down 
to  posterity,  and  his  own  people  constituted  his  trustees  and 
owners  for  themselves  and  for  their  children — so  far  from 
being  the  root  of  all  evil,  would  be  the  spring  perennial  of 
ever  growing  good. 

It  is  impossible,  under  these  circumstances,  but  that  such  a 
vine,  so  planted  of  God,  and  cultivated  under  his  command 
and  blessing,  must  have  filled  the  land  with  its  fruit,  must 
have  been  like  the  vine  which  he  brought  out  of  Egypt,  send- 
ing her  boughs  unto  the  sea,  and  her  branches  unto  the  river. 
The  hills  would  have  been  covered  with  the  shadow  of  it,  and 
the  boughs  thereof  would  have  been  like  the  goodly  cedars. 
For  God  himself,  having  prepared  room  before  it,  and  issued 


350  JURISPRUDENCE    OF   SLAVERY. 

orders  for  its  treatment,  would  have  caused  it  to  take  deep  root, 
and  to  fill  the  land.  And  every  owner,  every  heritor  of  such 
consecrated  property,  every  trustee  for  his  children  of  such 
investments  in  the  merchandise  of  immortality,  would  have 
been  seized  and  inspired  with  a  holy  greed  of  gain,  a  sancti- 
fied and  sanctifying  avarice  of  such  possessions. 

It  is  impossible  that  under  such  securities  and  safeguards, 
such  insurances  not  only  of  the  property  in  perpetuity,  but 
such  guarantees  for  its  demand,  such  provisions  for  a  never- 
failing  ambition  after  it,  such  pledges  for  a  perpetual  high 
rate  of  such  stock  in  the  market,  such  a  commanding  high 
price,  and  contrary  to  the  rule  of  money  among  the  Hebrews, 
such  a  living  inalienable  usury  reverting  to  the  owner ;  it  is 
impossible  that  this  species  of  property,  of  all  others,  should 
have  ceased  out  of  existence. 

And  if  it  had  not  ceased,  but,  according  to  the  pretended 
sanction  and  command  of  God,  had  gone  on  increasing  from 
generation  to  generation,  then  there  would  have  been  some 
evidence  of  its  .existence.  A  continually  increasing  body  of 
jurisprudence  would  have  been  requisite  in  regard  to  it ;  just 
as,  in  our  own  country,  the  growth  of  such  jurisprudence  has 
filled  the  land,  and  overtopped  and  borne  down  all  other  laws 
as  inferior,  till  in  the  short  space  of  less  than  a  century  it  asserts 
and  holds  supremacy  in  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  of 
Justice,  and  interprets  and  commands  the  Constitution.  A 
system  of  legislation  for  it,  not  against  it,  would  have  been 
seen,  not  only  at  its  foundation,  but  growing  up  from  it, 
springing  out  of  it,  necessitated  by  it,  every  step  of  the 
way. 

There  never  yet  was  a  nation  in  which  slavery  was  a  funda- 
mental institution,  sanctioned,  admired,  venerated  and  profit- 
able, and  boasting  of  the  seal  of  heaven,  where  it  did  not 
enlarge  and  increase  ;  never  one,  where  its  patronage  and 
care  did  not  constitute  and  occupy  the  ruling  policy ;  never 
one  where  its  laws  did  not  stand  out  unmistakable  and  severe  ; 


NOTHING  OF  IT  IN  JUDEA.  351 

never  one  where  its  existence  and  its  progress  were  not  pal- 
pable, as  a  matter  of  undeniable  history. 

But  in  the  Jewish  state  there  is  no  such  race,  nor  any  trace 
of  its  existence  ;  there  is  no  such  legislation,  but  the  contrary  ; 
there  is  no  such  history,  nor  any  appearance  or  action  of  the 
institution  or  element  of  slavery,  or  the  propagation  or  in- 
crease of  a  slave  population.  There  are  none  of  the  inevitable 
and  unmistakable  signs,  concomitants  and  consequences  of 
such  an  institution ;  no  markets  for  human  beings,  nor  mer- 
chandise in  them,  nor  any  traces  of  the  existence  or  acknowl- 
edgment of  such  property,  in  any  transactions  of  wills,  invest- 
ments, exchanges,  appraisements,  mortgages,  sheriffs'  sales, 
settlements  of  estates  ;  not  to  speak  again  of  what  in  the  very 
constitution  of  the  Jewish  State  was  rendered  impossible, 
the  hunting  for  fugitives,  the  provisions  against  their  es- 
cape, the  securities  for  their  recapture,  trial,  and  return  into 
slavery. 

Much  use  has  been  attempted  of  the  argument  of  silence, 
alleged  especially  in  the  New  Testament.  But  this  argument, 
in  view  of  the  certainty  that  if  slavery  had  been  a  thing  sanc- 
tioned of  God  it  must,  by  the  fifteen  hundredth  year  of  the 
Jewish  State,  by  the  process  of  patronage  and  propagation 
through  fifteen  centuries  from  Moses  to  Christ,  have  filled  the 
land,  comes  to  be  of  prodigious  power  against  the  possibility 
of  its  existence.  There  would  be  no  possibility  of  writing  five 
books  of  Greek,  Roman,  or  Egyptian  history,  so  frank,  une- 
laborate,  unaffected,  so  full  of  pictures  of  every-day  life,  such 
a  series  of  photographs  of  customs,  laws,  social,  domestic  and 
civil  manners,  institutions  and  observances,  so  artless,  so  with- 
out concealment,  so  self-evidencing  in  reality  and  truth,  and 
so  full  of  knowledge  and  instruction  as  the  Gospels,  and  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  without  the  omnipresent  and  prominent 
institution  and  customs  of  slavery  in  those  countries  coming 
out,  and  the  sentiments,  morals  and  manners  produced  by  it, 
as  well  as  the  laws  governing  it,  and  keeping  down  the  vie- 


352  INCREASE   OF  IT  IN  HOME. 

tims  of  its  cruelty.  There  would  be  no  possibility,  if  it  had 
been  an  ordinance  appointed  of  God,  and  existing  fifteen  hun- 
dred years,  of  having  it  left  in  doubt,  or  capable  of  being 
brought  in  question,  whether  it  was  a  reality  in  the  land,  or 
whether  Christ  and  his  apostles  approved  or  disapproved 
of  it.  Silence  in  regard  to  it,  and  the  exclusion  of  its  evi- 
ence  from  the  pages  of  such  historic  volumes,  could  only  be 
effected  by  stratagem,  by  art,  and  maintained  for  a  pur- 
pose, by  a  violence  of  concealment  contrary  to  historic 
truth. 

Before  the  Grecian  and  Roman  empires  have  attained  one 
half  the  duration  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Jews,  the  germ  of 
slavery  has  grown  among  them  from  a  seed  to  a  forest. 
Without  being  divinely  planted  or  appointed,  without  any 
assertion  or  pretence  on  the  part  of  historians  or  commen- 
tators on  the  laws  and  institutions  of  those  States,  of  its  ever 
having  been  revealed  from  heaven  as  a  divine  inheritance,  or 
a  social  oppression  agreeable  to  the  divine  will,  slavery  runs 
on  as  if  it  were  indeed  divine,  and  it  only  takes  a  few  centu- 
ries to  absorb  nearly  all  forms  of  domestic  service  in  the  un- 
paid, enforced,  unmitigated  condition  and  institution  of  abso- 
lute chattelism.  Slavery  characterizes  and  fills  the  country, 
through  the  enforced  ignorance  and  immorality  of  the  slaves, 
and  inevitable  pride,  luxury  and  cruelty  of  their  owners,  with 
all  its  peculiarities  of  law,  licentiousness,  despotism,  and  every 
abomination.  Its  presence  can  not  be  concealed,  and  its  pro- 
gress is  as  the  slow  consuming  stream  of  lava  down  garden 
slopes  and  vineyards  to  the  sea. 

According  to  Gibbon,  the  number  of  slaves  in  the  Roman 
empire  had  increased,  under  the  reign  of  Claudius,  till  it 
equalled  the  number  of  free  inhabitants.  From  the  time  of 
Augustus  to  Justinian  there  may  be  reckoned  three  slaves  to 
one  freeman,  so  that,  out  of  a  whole  population  of  twenty-eight 
millions  in  Italy,  twenty-one  millions  may  be  set  down  as 


INEVITABLE   EESULTS    OF   SLAVERY.  353 

slaves.  The  prodigality  of  wealth  in  this  single  species  of 
property  (revealed  from  heaven  as  an  abomination  worthy  of 
death)  came  to  be,  where  a  divine  revelation  was  unknown, 
almost  incredible.  Ten  and  twenty  thousand  slaves  were 
sometimes  owned  by  one  person. 

Out  of  all  this  there  grew  what  might  have  been  expected, 
under  the  darkness  of  Paganism,  but  what  must  have  been  still 
worse  had  the  sin  been  perpetrated  along  with  Judaism,  and 
what  must  be  worse  than  either,  if  it  be  maintained  under  the 
light  of  Christianity,  a  state  of  society  unexampled  since  the 
deluge,  for  its  revelry,  abandonment  and  wantonness  of  de- 
pravity. Inhumanity  and  cruelty  in  sentiment  and  on  princi- 
ple carried  to  an  art ;  the  tenderness  even  of  woman's  nature 
changed  into  a  fiendlike  insensibility,  or  even  delight,  in  the 
infliction  of  pain  on  others;  inventions  of  new  atrocities,  subtle 
and  devilish,  cruelties  practiced  for  mere  variety  of  recrea- 
tion ;  man-stealing,  sodomy,  pederasty,  all  those  iniquities 
and  abominable  hideous  caricatures  and  deliriums  of  depravity 
hinted  at  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans ;  fornication  and  adul- 
tery established  in  a  system  of  law,  in  the  forbidding  of  the 
matrimonial  contract  among  slaves,  just  as  at  the  South ;  all 
the  tempests  and  fermentations  in  the  State,  and  in  social  life, 
consequent  on  such  abominations,  and  developed  in  history ; 
rebellions,  insurrections,  devastations,  servile  wars,  vast  mas- 
sacres, tortures,  crucifixions,  amphitheatrical  butcheries,  gladi- 
atorial wholesale  murders  for  the  people's  sports ;  luxury, 
idleness,  dissolution,  along  with  the  malignity  and  cruelty  of 
fiends,  taught  and  fostered  both  in  the  higher  and  lower 
classes ;  barbarity  and  licentiousness  perfected  into  a  science, 
but  the  victims  of  such  ferocity  and  lust  unconsciously  revenging 
themselves,  as  a  dead  body  sometimes  does  upon  its  dissect- 
ors ;  fatal  diseases  fostered  and  festering,  pestilences  raging  in 
the  body,  as  well  as  sins  gangrening  in  the  soul,  and  making 
society  a  mass  of  moral  putridity  and  misery.  Such  was  the 
result  of  slavery  in  Rome;  such  would  have  been  its  re- 


354 


INEVITABLE  BESULTS   OF   SLAVERY. 


suit  in  Judea,  had  it  ever  been  established  and  perpetuated 
there.* 


*  Consult,  for  proof  in  detail,  SMITH'S 
Roman  and  Grecian  Antiquities,  ed. 
Anthon ;  GIBBON'S  Decline  and  Fall ; 
BECKER,  Roman  Antiquities;  Fuss, 
Roman  Antiquities,  Parti;  EDWARDS, 
Roman  Slavery ;  ESCHENBERG,  Greek 
and  Roman  Antiquities ;  GROTE,  His- 
tory of  Greece;  ARCHB.  POTTER, 
Archseologia.  When  any  master 
was  murdered  by  a  slave,  it  was  a 
law  in  Rome  that  all  the  slaves  who 
were  under  the  roof  of  the  deceased 
at  the  time  of  the  murder  should  be 
put  to  death,  and  all  who  had  received 
their  freedom.  An  instance  of  the 
execution  of  this  decree  to  the  letter 
occurred  in  the  year  61,  the  very 
year,  it  is  supposed,  of  Paul's  arrival 
at  Rome.  The  whole  body  of  slaves 
belonging  to  Pedanius,  amounting  to 
at  least  four  hundred,  and  including 
many  women  and  children,  were  sac- 
rificed, though  confessedly  innocent; 
a  most  frightful  example  of  the  atroc- 
ity of  the  laws  which  regulated  the 
relations  of  slave  to  master,  and,  it 
may  be  added,  of  the  wickedness  and 
atrocity  of  the  relation  itself,  of  which 
all  cruelties  aud  depravities  of  life 
and  morals  are  but  the  natural  result 


The  law  under  which  they  were  put 
to  death  was  passed  by  the  Senate 
(see  TACITUS,  Ann.  B.,  13,  33)  some 
three  years  previous.  The  populace 
opposed  the  execution,  but  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Senate  maintained  it,  and 
Nero  lined  the  streets  with  troops  to 
keep  down  the  mob.  Tacitus  gives 
the  speech  of  Caius  Cassius,  one  of 
the  senators,  against  repealing  or  sus- 
pending the  decree,  His  arguments 
were  worthy  of  the  slave  democracy 
of  modern  times.  "At  present,"  said 
he,  "  we  have  in  our  service  whole 
nations  of  slaves ;  the  scum  of  man- 
kind, collected  from  all  quarters  of  the 
globe.  Who  can  hope  to  live  in  se- 
curity among  his  slaves,  when  so  large 
a  number  as  four  hundred  could  not 
defend  Pedanius  Secundus  ?"  The 
argument  was  that  the  four  hundred 
innocent  should  be  put  to  death,  to 
strike  terror  among  the  millions.  TAC- 
ITUS, Annals,  B.,  xiv.,  42,  45.  Com- 
pare THOLUCK,  Nature  and  Moral  In- 
fluence of  Heathenism ;  STROUD'S 
SLAVE  LAWS,  ch.  ii.,  Of  the  Incidents 
of  Slavery;  BECKER,  in  Bib.  Sacra. 
voL  2 ;  KITTO,  Cyclop.  Bib.  Lit.  Art.( 
SLAVE.  NEANDER,  Ch.  Hist.,  v.  i. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

EXAMINATION  OP  GREEK  USAGE  IN  ran  NEW  TESTAMENT. — TERMS  OP  SERVICE  AND 
SERVANTS  DERIVED  FROM  THE  HEBREW,  WITH  TIIE  OLD  FEEE  HEBREW  MEANING, 
AND  NOT  TIIE  MEANING  OF  SLAVERY. — USAGE  IN  TUB  GOSPEL  OP  MATTHEW. 

IN  the  examination  of  passages  in  the  New  Testament 
bearing  on  this  subject"  especially  those  in  which  the  Greek 
terms  for  servants,  servitude,  slaves  or  slavery  occur,  we  have 
to  bear  in  mind  that,  while  the  language  of  these  terms  was 
Greek,  the  signification  was  to  a  great  degree  Hebrew.  The 
ideas  for  those  terms,  as  they  lay  in  the  Hebrew  mind,  were 
different  from  the  same  in  the  Greek  mind,  so  that  the  He- 
brew law  and  idea  govern  the  Greek  words,  not  the  words 
the  idea.  It  was  an  inevitable  result  of  the  discipline  of  the 
Mosaic  laws,  with  the  instructions  of  the  Prophets,  that  the 
conceptions  of  the  Jews,  as  to  sociaf  life  and  liberty,  were  so 
far  raised  above  those  of  the  whole  world  beside,  that  neither 
the  language  of  the  Greeks  nor  of  the  Romans  was  adequate 
fully  to  convey  them.  Neither  the  Greek  nor  Roman  term 
for  wife  could  convey  the  sacredness  of  its  meaning  in  God's 
Word. 

The  signification  of  such  terms  inevitably  comes  from  the 
Hebrew  through  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint  translation,  and 
is  to  be  corrected  by  the  Hebrew.  "  All  the  world,"  remai-ks 
Lightfoot,  "  that  used  the  Old  Testament  at  those  times  (unless 
it  were  such  as  had  gained  the  Hebrew  tongue  by  study)  used 
it  in  the  translation  of  the  LXX.,  or  the  Greek — the  quota- 
tions of  the  penmen  of  the  New  Testament  out  of  the  Old 
Testament  might  be  examined  by  the  Greek  Bible."*  The 

*  LIGIITFOOT,  vol.  xii.,  587,  vol,  iii.,  62,  310.  CONTBEARE  and  Howsox,  L, 
pp.  11,  32,  43.  HUG.,  Intr.  N.  Test.  ALFORD,  N.  T.  int 


356  NEW   TESTAMENT   USAGE. 

terms  for  servants,  servitude,  bondage,  et  cetera,  were  the  old 
Hebrew  terms,  drawn  through  the  medium  of  the  Septuagint 
translation,  and  possessing  the  old  Hebrew  signification.  The 
The  Septuagint  translators  sometimes  used  dovkog  for  is?, 
sometimes  Traig,  sometimes  OIKETTJS.  But  there  was  no  Greek 
word  for  servant  answering  to  the  Hebrew  i^y,  free  from  the 
possible  signification  of  bondage,  in  the  way  of  chattelism,  or 
human  beings  held  as  property.  The  Septuagint  translators 
having  applied  dovXog  so  freely  as  the  rending  of  na?,  which  is  the 
word  for  a  free  Hebrew  servnnt,  dovXog  mnst  have  come  to 
be  as  common  a  usage  in  Judea  to  signify  free  Hebrew  ser- 
vants, as  it  was  in  classic  Greek  to  signify  slaves.  The  ordi- 
nary meaning  of  it,  therefore,  in  the  New  Testament,  is  not  a 
slave,  but  a  laborer  for  wages  on  a  voluntary  agreement.  The 
comparison  of  passages  proves  this. 

"  Besides  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Planck,  "  the  Alexandrian  interpreters  have  also  trans- 
ferred from  the  Hebrew  usus  loquendi  new  significations  to 
many  Greek  words.  The  cause  of  this  some  have  supposed 
(and  not  without  a  semblance  of  truth)  to  lie  in  the  poverty 
of  the  Hebrew  ;  whence  it  has  happened  that  since  one  word 
in  that  language  often  serves  to  express  several  ideas,  the 
same  variety  of  signification  has  been  transferred  to  a  Greek 
word,  which  perhaps  properly  corresponds  to  it  only  in  one 
signification."*  It  is  not  so  much  a  proof  of  poverty  in  the 
Hebrew  tongue  as  of  freedom  and  nobleness  in  the  people, 
and  righteousness  in  their  laws,  that  the  language  had  no 
word  for  slavery.  The  Greek  word  for  slave  and  slavery, 
being  used  by  the  Septuagint  interpreters  to  translate  the 
Hebrew  words  for  servant  and  service,  received  thenceforward 
from  the  Hebrew  a  meaning  of  freedom,  which  they  did  not 
bear  in'  what  is  called  classic  Greek.  Consequently,  the  same 
Greek  words  which,  outside  the  New  Testament,  might  mean 
slave  and  slavery,  can  not  be  proved  to  possess  that  meaning 

*  PLANCK.  Greek  Style  of  the  New  Testament     Bib.  Rep.,  vol.  L,  p.  686. 


NEW  TESTAMENT  USAGE.  357 

in  it,  but  are  rather  proved  to  possess  the  Hebrew  idea,  which 
they  must  have  been  used  to  convey.  The  general  presump- 
tion in  regard  to  the  word  cJovAof,  in  the  New  Testament,  is 
that  it  means  a  free  servant,  such  as  the  Jews  were  accus- 
tomed to,  such  only  as  the  law  of  God  permitted,  suoh  as  was 
familiar  in  the  social  life  and  households  of  the  country.  For 
it  is  taken  from  the  Hebrew  vocabulary,  with  the  Hebrew 
meaning,  and  the  meaning  of  slavery  can  not  be  supposed  or 
admitted,  without  positive  proof  in  the  context,  or  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  particular  case.  General  instructions  to  servants, 
and  to  masters  in  regard  to  the  treatment  of  servants,  must 
inevitably  mean  such  kind  of  servants  as  the  law  of  God  per- 
mitted, and  not  slaves,  which  the  law  of  God  forbade.  It 
would  be  as  absurd  to  suppose  the  Bible  issuing  instructions 
to  slaveholders  for  the  treatment  of  slaves,  as  if  they  could 
righteously  hold  slaves,  as  it  would  to  suppose  similar  instruc- 
tions given  to  horse  thieves  for  the  treatment  of  their  stolen 
property,  or  to  fornicators  for  the  treatment  of  their  mis- 
tresses, as  if  fornication  and  horse-stealing  were  no  crimes. 

That  may  be  said  in  regard  to  the  word  dovhog,  and  kindred 
terms  in  the  New  Testament,  which  has  been  beautifully  and 
truly  remarked  by  Professor  Tholuck  concerning  some  other 
phrases  in  Greek,  used  for  religious  ideas,  that  "  in  connection 
with  the  Christian  dispensation  they  are  all  surrounded  Avith 
new  light,  and  advanced  to  a  higher  sense.  The  lexicographer 
of  the  New  Testament  has,  therefore,  first  of  all,  to  make  the 
Old  Testament  idea  the  object  of  his  research,  and  to  express 
it  exactly ;  then,  by  a  careful  comparison  of  the  parallel  pas- 
sages, and  from  the  consciousness  of  Christian  feeling,  to  ob- 
tain a  clear  view  of  the  Christian  signification  ;  and  finally  to 
point  out  what  is  the  point  of  connection  between  the  idea  of 
the  New  Testament  and  that  of  the  Old.''* 

*  TIIOLUCK  on  the  Lexicography  of  volume  of   the  Biblical  Repository, 

the    New  Testament.      The    article  pp.   552-568. — Also  DR.  ROBINSON, 

translated    from    the  Latin  by   Dr.  Philology  of  tho  N.  T.  Bib.   Rep., 

Robinson,  is  to  be  found  in  tho  first  vol.  4. 


358 


NEW   TESTAMENT  USAGE. 


EVIDENCE   FROM   THE   GOSPEL    OF   MATTHEW. 

The  first  occurrence  of  the  subject  of  service,  in  any  form, 
is  in  Matthew  viii.  5-13,  the  application  of  the  centurion  to 
Jesus  for  the  healing  of  his  servant.  The  word  here  used 
three  times  for  the  servant  in  question,  is  TraZf,  answering  to 
the  Hebrew  n?i,  naar,  boy,  or  youth.  Bloomfield  remarks  on 
the  passage,  that  rralg  is  often  used,  both  in  the  classical  and 


The  reader  may  consult,  also,  on 
this  subject,  iu  the  same  volume, 
J.  A.  H.  TITTMAN'S  admirable  article 
on  the  grammatical  accuracy  of  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament.  He 
here  remarks  on  the  importance  of 
Ernesti's  direction  "  to  inquire  re- 
specting words  and  phrases  express- 
ing things  about  which  the  Greeks 
were  accustomed  to  speak ;  and  first, 
whether  such  single  words  are  spoken 
in  the  same  sense  in  which  the 
Greeks  used  them."  This  article  was 
published  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
Biblical  Repository,  in  1831.  See 
also  in  the  same  volume  the  article  of 
HAHN  on  Interpretation. 

Likewise,  Prof.  TURNER'S  Lectures 
on  the  Claims  of  the  Hebrew  Lan- 
guage and  Literature.  He  remarks 
that  "  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  Hebraistic."  "  If  words  oc- 
cur in  the  New  Testament,  the  mean- 
ing of  which  is  modified  by  that  of 
analogous  words  in  Hebrew,  it  be- 
comes necessary  for  every  one  who 
would  thoroughly  comprehend  his 
Greek  Testament  to  study  his  He- 
brew Bible." 

See  also  HUG  on  the  Prevalence  of 
the  Greek  Language  in  Palestine  in 
the  age  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles 
HUG'S  INTRODUCTION  to  the  New 
Testament.  "In  the  holy  city  itself 
whole  congregations  of  Jews  who 
spoke  Greek  were  established."  Bib. 
Rep.,  vol.  L,  p.  530-552. 


Also  J.  A.  H.  TITTMAN.  Causes  of 
Forced  Interpretations  of  the  New 
Testament  See  particularly  the  re- 
marks on  the  word  diKatof  and  its 
cognates.  "  Tlie  Alexandrine  dialect 
was  the  language  employed  by  the 
Greek  interpreters  of  the  Old  .Testa- 
ment." "  The  style  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  mixed  and  made  up  of 
words  and  idioms  borrowed  from  sev- 
eral languages,  and  particularly  from 
the  Hebrew."  The  importance  of 
the  true  historical  as  well  as  the  gram- 
matical interpretation  is  noted.  Bib. 
Rep.,  voL  L,  pp.  470-487. 

PFANUKUCHE.  Aramean  language 
in  Palestine  in  the  age  of  Christ  and 
the  Apostles.  The  writer  notes  "the 
unexampled  firmness  with  which  the 
Palestine  Jews,  after  their  return 
from  the  Babylonish  exile,  remained 
faithful  to  their  ancient  manners  and 
customs."  Also,  under  the  dominion 
of  the  Romans  in  Palestine,  "  the  en- 
tire internal  administration  of  the  gov- 
ernment, the  courts  of  justice,  etc., 
remained  without  any  important 
change ;  the  nation  were  permitted 
to  retain  their  code  of  laws,  so  insep- 
arable from  their  religions."  Bib.  Rep.,  " 
vol.  i.,  p.  33. 

Consult  also  Prot  THOLUCK  on  tho 
Method  of  Theological  Study  and  In- 
terpretation. BlBLIOTHECA  SACRA, 
vol.  L,  pp.  200,  340. 

Also  Prof.  STUART  on  the  meaning 
of  Ktyuof.  Bib.  Rep.,  voLL,  p.  736 


EVIDENCE   FROM   MATTHEW.  359 


Hellenistic  Greek,  for  dovAo^,  servant,  like  puer  in  Latin.  It 
is  manifest  that  there  is  no  indication  of  slavery  here. 

In  Matt.  ix.  38,  "The  laborers  are  few  ;  pray  that  he  would 
send  forth  laborers  ;"  the  word  used  by  our  Lord  is  epydrai, 
answering  to  the  Hebrew  ir*,  ovedh,  a  working  man  ;  the 
Greek  word  here  certainly  meaning  servants,  hired  laborers, 
but  not  slaves. 

Matt,  x.,  23,  "  The  servant  is  not  above  his  lord  ;  enough 
for  the  servant  that  he  be  as  his  lord  ;"  dovhog  is  used  in  both 
cases  ;  no  meaning  of  slavery  attached  to  it,  but  signifying  a 
free,  voluntary  service,  the  service  of  Christ. 

Matt,  xii.,  1  8,  "  Behold  my  servant,  whom  I  have  chosen, 
my  beloved,"  etc.,  o  Traig  ftov  ;  in  the  Hebrew,  "^a?,  my  ser- 
vant. 

Matt,  xiii.,  27,  28  ;  the  parable  of  the  householder  sowing 
good  seed.  "  The  servants  said  unto  him,"  dovAot,  with  no 
indication  of  any  but  free  service. 

Matt,  xviii.,  23-35  ;  the  parable  of  the  king  and  the  wicked 
servant,  who  owed  ten  thousand  talents.  Here  the  words 
used  are  dovXo$  and  crvvdcwAof,  employed  nine  times,  but  with 
no  signification  of  slave  or  slavery,  since  it  is  the  king  who 
takes  accounts  of  servants  entrusted  with  the  disbursement  of 
vast  sums  of  money,  and  who  have  fellow-servants  owing  them 
in  like  manner,  in  accounts  of  business.  It  is  not  a  process 
of  servitude,  but  of  official  business,  or  mercantile  transac- 
tions, here  brought  to  view,  and  of  debts  among  freemen 
under  responsibilities  to  the  law.  Bloomfield  remarks  on  the 
word  dovAwv,  here  used,  that  it  does  not  mean  slaves,  but 
officers  in  the  receipt  or  disbursement  of  money,  of  what  sort 
it  is  not  certain. 

Matt,  xx.,  1-16.  —  Here  we  have  an  important  passage,  the 
parable  of  the  householder  hiring  his  laborers  for  his  vineyard. 
It  is  in  the  market  place  that  he  hires  them,  going  forth, 
morning,  noon  and  afternoon,  for  that  purpose  ;  and  the  rep- 
resentation intimates  that  there  were  many  standing  idle, 


360  USAGE  IN  MATTHEW. 

waiting  to  be  hired,  offering  their  services.  There  is  no  hint, 
no  intimation  of  there  being  any  such  thing  as  slavery  known, 
any  such  servants  as  slaves  to  be  bought  and  worked  as  prop- 
erty, without  wages.  There  is  no  slave-market,  and  the  ser- 
vants are  hired  from  themselves,  and  neither  bought  nor  hired 
from  any  third  persons.  There  is  no  such  possibility  or  cus- 
tom conceived  of.  These  servants  were  freemen,  who  hired 
themselves  out,  and  this,  manifestly,  was  the  prevailing,  cus- 
tomary style  of  service,  just  as  in  England  at  this  day,  or  in 
free  New  England,  where  no  such  thing  as  slavery  is  known. 

And  the  master  of  the  vineyard  agrees  with  the  servants 
for  so  much  by  the  day,  and  in  the  case  of  the  latest  hired, 
he  promises  to  give  to  them  whatever  is  just  as  their  wages. 
He  does  not  intimate  that  he  will  give  them  a  peck  of  meal  a 
week,  and  a  fustian  jacket  and  trowsers,  and  that  the  provis- 
ion of  such  food  and  clothing  as  he  chooses  for  them  will  be 
wages  sufficient  for  their  work.  Whatsoever  is  just,  I  will  give 
you.  Upon  this  very  principle,  and  with  a  view  to  this  very 
passage,  the  injunction  was  issued  by  the  apostle,  "  Masters, 
give  unto  your  servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal ;"  such, 
wages  as  their  labor  demands,  such  as  will  be  a  just  equiva- 
lent for  their  work. 

The  word  used  in  this  parable  is  epydrai,  workmen,  labor- 
ers, as  in  Matt,  ix.,  38. 

Matt,  xx.,  26 ;  "  Whosoever  will  be  great  among  you,  let  him 
be  your  minister,"  didicovo^,  servant,  "and  he  that  will  be  first 
among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant,"  dovhog,  servant  of  all 
work ;  not  necessarily  slave ;  and  the  exigency  of  the  case 
forbids  that  our  blessed  Lord  could  have  commanded  any  of 
his  disciples  to  be  as  slaves  one  to  another,  as  chattels,  as  each 
other's  property.  Call  no  man  master  in  such  a  sense.  It 
was  not  that  kind  of  miserable,  utter  degradation,  at  the  will 
of  another,  that  was  here  enjoined,  but  humility,  and  the  ser- 
vice of  love,  as  in  Galatians,  Ye  are  called  unto  liberty  by 
love,  to  serve  one  another,  not  to  be  one  another's  slaves.  A 


THE    HOUSEHOLDER   IN   MATTHEW.  361 

free  service  is  here  enjoined,  the  service  of  freemen  and  not 
of  slaves,  the  service  of  voluntary  love",  in  lowliness  of  mind, 
each  esteeming  others  better  than  themselves. 

Matt,  xxi.,  33-42  ;  the  parable  of  the  householder  planting 
a  vineyard,  and  building  a  tower,  and  letting  it  out  to  hus- 
bandmen, and  then  sending  his  servants  to  collect  his  rents  ; 
rovg  dovAovf,  the  servants,  used  three  times,  verses  34,  35,  36. 
It  certainly  does  not  mean  slaves,  for  the  scene  of  the  parable 
is  in  Judea,  the  vineyard  is  a  Jewish  vineyard,  the  servants 
are  supposed  to  be  Jews,  and  not  enslaved  heathens  ;  and  the 
whole  parable  is  as  truly  a  representation  of  social  life,  in  the 
relation  between  masters,  or  employers,  and  those  employed 
by  them,  as  the  preceding  parable  of  the  householder  going 
forth  to  hire  workmen  for  his  vineyard.  There  was  not  an 
individual  who  heard  this  discourse  of  Christ  who  could  have 
understood  him  to  mean  any  other  than  hired  servants,  ser- 
vants on  wacjes,  but  not  slaves.  The  householder  sent  these 

O          ' 

servants  to  the  husbandmen,  to  receive  of  the  fruit  of  the 
vineyard.  They  were  entrusted  with  the  collection  of  the 
rents  in  the  productions  of  the  land  leased,  or  rented. 

The  householder  being  a  Jew,  the  demonstration  is  perfect, 
his  servants  being  Jews,  that  they  could  not  be  slaves,  and, 
therefore,  the  word  dovkovg  is  demonstrated  as  possible  to  be 
applied,  as  beyond  all  question  it  was  applied,  to  such  servants 
as  were  free  servants,  and  not  slaves.  The  Jewish  law  forbade 
any  Hebrew  from  being  held  as  a  slave,  over  and  above  the 
principles  and  statutes,  that,  likwise,  strictly  applied,  would 
forbid  holding  any  human  being  as  a  slave. 

Matt,  xxii.,  2-14.  Here  the  parable  is  of  the  king  who  made 
a  marriage  supper  for  his  son,  and  sent  forth  his  servants  to 
summon  the  invited  guests  to  the  wedding.  The  phrase  used 
for  servants  is  rovg  Sovkovg,  and  it  is  employed  five  times,  in 
verses  3,  4,  6,  8,  and  10.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
it  means  slaves  ;  and  in  the  13th  verse  the  word  employed  is 
dianovoig,  attendants  or  servants,  just  as  Siaitovog  and 

16 


362  FAITHFUL  AND  WISE   SERVANTS. 

are  interchanged  in  the  preceding  case,  Matt,  xx.,  26,  "  Then 
said  the  king  to  his  servants.  Bind  them  hand  and  foot,"  etc. 
These  last  would  be  more  likely  to  be  slaves  than  the  first  ; 
yet  the  word  in  the  last  case  is  didnovo^,  and  in  the  other 
dovhog.  There  is  no  proof  whatever  that  slaves  are  here  in- 
dicated ;  but  if  they  were,  it  is  not  a  scene  in  Judea,  but 
abroad,  in  the  dominions  of  some  oriental  potentate. 

Matt,  xxiii.,  12.  "But  he  that  is  greatest  among  you  shall 
be  your  servant,"  diditovog ;  a  repetition  of  the  injunction  of 
humility  in  Matt.  20 :  26,  and  the  word  employed  signifying  a 
free,  voluntary  laborer  or  attendant. 

Matt,  xxiv.,  45-51.  "Who  then  is  a  faithful  and  wise  ser- 
vant, whom  his  lord  hath  made  ruler  over  his  household,"  etc. 
Here  the  words  employed  are  dovhog  and  ovvdovkovg,  and  the 
word  dovXo<;  is  employed  four  times,  in  verses  45,  46,  48  and 
50.  There  is  no  meaning  of  slave  in  it,  for,  again,  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  scene  of  household  life  among  the  Jews,  who 
kept  no  slaves,  and  at  whose  feasts  and  scenes  of  recreation 
and  enjoyment  the  very  relatives  and  members  of  the  house- 
hold thought  it  no  degradation  to  serve  with  the  servants,  if 
there  were  need  of  such  service,  as  in  the  case  recorded  in 
John  xii.,  2,  where  "  they  made  him  a  supper,  and  Martha 
served."  The  servants  in  this  case  are  faithful  and  wise,  types 
of  the  willing  and  faithful  disciples  and  servants  of  the  Lord, 
voluntary  servants  and  not  slaves.  The  good  and  the  bad  are 
contrasted,  and  their  responsibility  to  their  Lord  is  solemnly 
set  forth. 

So  in  Luke  xvii.,  7,  where  our  Lord  was  speaking  to  the 
Jews,  to  his  apostles,  and  generally  to  the  disciples  (it  was  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Jerusalem),  "  Which  of  you  having  a 
servant  ploughing,  or  feeding  cattle,"  etc.,  dovXov  and 
and  the  service  is  signified  by  the  word  SiaKovei,  not 
The  agricultural  life  and  service  of  Judea,  as  in  the  days  of 
Boaz,  with  the  picture  of  his  servants  at  their  work,  was  a  life 
of  free  service ;  there  were  no  slaves.  There  is  no  evidence 


FREE   SERVICE.  363 

of  any  change  for  the  worse,  in  this  respect,  from  the  time  of 
Boaz  to  the  days  of  our  Lord  Jesus. 

Matt,  xxv.,  14-30.  This  is  the  parable  of  the  man  travel- 
ing into  a  far  country,  and  calling  his  servants,  and  delivering 
to  them  his  goods,  his  money,  to  trade  with  for  him  in  his 
absence.  The  words  here  used  are  dovXog  and  dovkovg,  em- 
ployed six  times,  in  verses  W,  19,  21,  23,  26  and  30.  It  was 
not  the  employment  of  slaves  to  invest  capital,  and  make 
money  thereon,  or  to  act  as  brokers,  or  exchangers,  or  com- 
mission merchants.  There  is  no  proof  here  that  slaves  were 
meant,  or  were  in  the  minds  either  of  the  speaker  or  the 
hearers.  On  the  contrary,  as  our  blessed  Lord  was  discours- 
ing of  things  familiar  to  his  hearers,  and  which  were  well 
understood  as  illustrated  by  things  familiar  to  their  own  ob- 
servation, the  presumption  is  that  neither  he  nor  they  referred 
to,  nor  would  think  of,  any  other  kind  of  factors  or  servants 
in  such  commission  business  than  voluntary,  free  servants,  em- 
ployed for  wages,  on  a  compact  of  their  own. 

Matt,  xxvi.,  51 ;"  Struck  a  servant  of  the  High  Priest." 
Here  the  word  used  for  servant  is  dovXov,  certainly  not  a 
slave,  for  the  Jewish  priests  kept  no  slaves  ;  the  law  did  not 
permit  it.  This  man  was  a  Jew,  and  could  not  possibly  have 
been  a  slave.  No  Hebrew  could  be,  or  could  be  held,  as  a 
slave,  and  this  man  was  certainly  a  free  servant,  follower,  re- 
tainer, perhaps  one  of  the  vnrjperai,  or  officers  of  Judas' 
band.  Yet  he  is  called  a  dov^og,  and  the  case  is  proof  abso- 
lute that  the  use  of  that  word  does  not  of  itself  prove  the 
existence  of  slavery. 

Matt,  xxvi.,  58.  Peter,  in  the  high  priest's  palace,  went 
in  and  sat  with  the  servants,  to  see  the  end.  Here  the  word 
used  for  servants  is  vTrrjper&v,  used  of  the  same  class  and  con- 
dition as  the  word  dovkog,  in  verse  51.  It  is  said  to  mean 
here  the  ministers,  attendants,  or  beadles  of  the  Sanhedrim. 
But  the  Sanhedrim  had  no  slaves.  The  servant  of  the  hig;h 

o 

priest,  whose  ear  Peter  cut  off,  may  have  been  one  of  these 


364  VARIETIES    OF   SERVICE. 

very  officers,  one  of  the  vrrjjperai.  There  is  no  evidence  to  the 
contrary. 

The  dovhoi  were  a  more  generic  class,  the  vnriperai,  specific  ; 
and  in  John  xvii.,  18,  we  have  the  two  together.  "  And  the 
servants  and  officers  stood  there,  who  had  made  a  fire  of  coals  ; 
for  .it  was  cold ;  and  they  warmed  themselves ;  and  Peter 
stood  with  them,  and  warmed  himself."  But  again,  in  verse 
26,  the  kinsman  of  Malchus,  the  servant  of  the  high  priest, 
whose  ear  Peter  cut  off,  is  called  one  of  the  servants  of  the 
high  priest,  elg  T&V  dovkuv.  And  in  the  third  verse  Judas 
is  said  to  have  received  a  band  and  officers  from  the  chief 
priests  and  Pharisees,  comprising  the  whole  rabble  that  rushed 
upon  Jesus  in  the  garden,  and  whom  Peter  encountered  with 
his  sword.  The  (SoDAo^,  whose  ear  he  cut  off,  would  appear  to 
have  been  one  of  the  VTrrjpeTai,  but  neither  of  these  were 
slaves. 

Generally  the  attendants  upon  any  work,  the  working 
agents,  were  called  vnrjperaL.  John  xviii.,  36,  our  Lord  says, 
"  If  my  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then  would  my  servants 
fight" — vrrjperai.  But  our  Lord's  disciples  and  servants  are 
called  diaicovoi,  6ovXoit  or  virrjperai,  the  words  being  inter- 
changeable, as  for  example,  John  xii.,  26,  my  servant,  diaitovog ; 
John  xiii.,  16;  Luke  xvii.,  10;  John  xiii.,  16,  and  xv.,  15  ; 
the  servant  not  greater  than  his  lord — not  servants  but  friends 
— we  are  unpi-ofitable  servants,  SovXoi — and  so  in  other  places. 
Luke  i.,  2,  ministers  of  the  word,  imr]pKTai.  In  Liddell  and 
Scott,  vTrrjpKrrjg  is  set  down  as  a  laborer,  helper,  assistant,  ser- 
vant, underling,  inferior  officer.  "In  Xenophon,  vmypeTai 
were  a  number  of  men  in  immediate  attendance  on  the  gen- 
eral, as  aides-de-camp  or  adjutants.  Cyr.  2,  4,  4;  6,  2,  14, 
etc.,  etc."  Compare  Matt.  xx.  26,  page  360. 

Matt,  xxvi.,  69.  Peter  sitting  in  the  palace,  a  damsel, 
Traidtoicr],  comes  to  him.  She  is  called,  in  Mark  xiv.,  66,  one 
of  the  maids  of  the  high  priest,  \iia  ~&v  Traidioit&v,  and  iu 
Luke  xxii.,  56,  a  certain  maid,  TraidioKij,  and  in  John  xviii., 


USAGE   IN   MARK.  365 

16,  17,  her  that  kept  the  door,  the  damsel,  rraidiaKT]  i\  Ovpupog. 
"  The  word  properly  signifies  a  girl ;  but,  as  in  our  own  lan- 
guage, it  is  often,  in  later  Greek,  used  to  denote  a  maid  ser- 
vant. The  office  of  porter,  though  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  it  was  confined  to  men,  was  among  the  Jews  generally- 
exercised  by  women." — BLOOMFIELD  in  loc. 

See  also  Acts  xii.,  13,  14.  There  the  doorkeeper,  or  the 
servant  whose  business  it  was  to  attend  upon  the  door,  was  a 
Jewish  damsel,  naidioKT),  named  Rhoda,  herself  one  of  the 
disciples,  and  on  such  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  circle  of 
brethren  and  sisters  praying  in  the  house,  that  she  ran  back 
instantly  among  them,  and  told  them  that  Peter  had  come, 
and  was  at  the  gate,  knocking ;  so  intimately  acquainted  with 
Peter  that  she  knew  him  by  his  voice,  as  he  stood  outside  the 
gate  and  demanded  admittance,  and  so  full  of  joy  at  his  ar- 
rival that,  actually  forgetting  to  open  the  gate,  she  ran  into 
the  midst  of  the  prayer-meeting  with  the  news.  Now  these 
maids,  or  damsels,  whether  of  the  high  priests,  or  of  the  dis- 
ciples, in  their  families,  were  not  slaves,  but  answered  to  the 
condition  of  the  free  maid  servants  under  the  Mosaic  laws  in 
the  Old  Testament. 

USAGE   IN   THE   GOSPEL    OF   MAEK. 

Mark,  i.,  20.  They  left  their  father  Zebedee  in  the  ship 
with  the  hired  servants,  piaOuruv.  No  slaves  here  ;  yet  ser- 
vile work  to  be  done  by  servants  for  wages.  The  difference 
between  [iio9a)Tog  and  dovXoc;  may  have  been  the  same  as  be- 
tween the  Hebrew  T>5.'y,  hired  servant,  and  the  •»?:>,  servant, 
neither  being  slaves,  but  free. 

Mark  ix.,  35.  If  any  one  will  be  first  among  you,  he  shall 
be  last  of  all,  and  servant  of  all,  dtaKovog ;  in  other  places,  as 
Matt,  xx.,  26,  dovfog. 

Mark  x.,  43.  Whosoever  will  be  great  among  you,  shall  be 
your  minister,  dtdicovog ;  and  whosoever  will  be  the  chiefest 
among  you,  let  him  be  the  servant  of  all. 


366  USAGE  IN   MARK. 

Mark  xii.,  2,  4 ;  the  parable  of  the  husbandman  letting  out 
the  vineyard,  and  sending  his  servants  to  receive  the  fruits, 
as  in  Matt,  xxi.,  34.  The  word  for  servant  is  dovXov,  certainly 
not  a  slave,  the  same  being  of  a  Jewish  husbandman. 

Mark  xiii.,  34.  The  Son  of  man  on  a  far  journey,  giving 
authority  to  his  servants,  and  to  every  man  his  work  ;  dovj(,oigy 
not  slaves  in  a  Jewish  household. 

Mark  xiv.,  54,  65.  Peter  sitting  with  the  servants,  and  the 
servants  smiting  Jesus,  virnpsTai. 

We  may  note  in  this  gospel,  as  in  Matthew's,  concerning 
the  application  of  dovkog  to  denote  the  affectionate,  voluntary 
servant  in  the  household  of  faith,  in  the  family  of  Jesus,  that 
our  blessed  Lord  never  would  have  employed  a  word  so  base 
as  that  of  slave  to  signify  a  relation  so  free,  honorable,  volun- 
tary and  glorious  as  that  of  the  Christian  brother,  the  loving 
servant  for  Christ's  sake,  in  Christ's  love,  the  child  of  God, 
the  happy,  willing,  loving  servant  of  the  Saviour.  God  is  not 
a  slaveholder,  but  a  Father.  Satan  is  the  great  SLAVEHOLDER, 
but  God  rejects  the  service  of  a  slave,  and  will  have  only  the 
voluntary,  loving  service  of  a  freeman.  The  Greek  word 
dovAof,  employed  by  the  divine  Spirit  in  the  New  Testament 
to  signify  a  servant  of  God,  and  applied  even  to  the  divine 
Redeemer  in  his  work  of  matchless,  voluntary  love,  received 
its  elevated  meaning  from  the  Hebrew  -iss,  and  is  no  more  to 
be  debased  with  the  idea  of  slavery  than  the  Hebrew  law 
and  language  itself.  The  word  dovkog  is  a  Hebrew  proselyte, 
and  has  been  baptized,  and  thus  only  is  admitted  into  the 
Christian  family,  its  Pagan  wickedness  being  washed  away. 


CHAPTER    XXXII  . 

EVIDENCE  FROM  LUKE. — PICTURES  OP  FREE  JEWISH  HOUSEHOLDS. — PABARLE  OP  Tint 
PRODIGAL  Sox.— NOTHING  OP  SLAVERY  TO  BE  MET  WITH.— ONLY  FBEE,  VOLUNTARY 
SERVICE,  AS  UNDER  TUB  OLD  TESTAMENT  LAWS. 

IN  the  first  chapter  of  Luke  we  find  dovXr]  used  for  maiden 
and  handmaiden  of  the  Lord,  certainly  not  slave,  (i.  38,  48.) 
And  Trai66$,  child  (54),  for  his  servant  Israel,  and  the  same 
(69)  for  his  servant  David.  Ch.  ii.,  29.  "  Lord,  now  lettest 
thou  thy  servant  depart,"  etc.,  dovkov  oov,  not  thy  slave.  Luke 
vii.  2,  3,  7,  10,  the  centurion's  servant  who  was  sick.  Here 
the  word  used  in  verses  2,  3,  8  and  10,  is  dovkog.  But  in  verse 
7,  the  centurion  himself  speaks,  and  calls  his  servant  Tralg  p,ov. 
It  has  been  contended  that  being  a  centurion  he  must  have 
had  slaves  ;  but  even  if  he  had,  there  is  no  proof  of  it,  and  no 
proof  that  this  -nal^  was  a  slave,  or  that  there  was  a  single 
plave  in  his  household.  The  word  -rralg  is  proof  absolute  that 
the  word  dovXo^  does  not  necessarily  indicate  a  slave.  We 
find  rralg  and  dovXog  often  used  indifferently.  In  Matthew, 
viii.,  5-13,  in  the  same  case,  the  centurion  uses  the  word  nalq 
in  verses  6,  9,  and  his  servant  is  not  called  dovkog  at  all ;  and 
the  sacred  historian  uses  the  word  Tcalg,  not  dovhog,  in  verse 
13,  his  servant  (reals)  was  healed  the  same  hour. 

Now  the  argument  here  is  triumphant,  so  far  as  the  proof  that 
dovAof  may  be  used  as  signifying  the  same  with  -rralg,  that  is, 
may  be  used  of  a  free  servant,  and  does  not  necessarily  imply 
a  slave.  There  is  no  proof  whatever  that  the  servant  of  this 
centurion  was  a  slave,  but  every  indication  to  the  contrary. 
Supposing  this  man  a  proselyte,  then  his  household  must  have 
been  ordered  according  to  the  Jewish  law,  according  to  God's 


368  USAGE   IN   LUKE. 

covenant  with  Abraham.  But  his  servant  may  have  been  a 
freeman,  and  freemen  were  still  termed  dovkog,  so  that  this 
Greek  word  may  mean  a  free  person.* 

Luke  x.,  2,  V,  laborers  for  the  harvest ;  and,  "  The  laborer 
is  worthy  of  his  hire,"  epyardi,  epydrr^g.  The  occurrence  of 
this  proverb  intimates  a  state  of  society  in  which  the  working 
class  are  all  hired  laborers,  workers  for  wages,  servants,  not 
slaves.  It  is  a  proverb  that  grows  out  of  the  custom  of  free 
and  not  slave  labor  ;  but  it  conies  directly  from  the  word  of 
God,  and  in  connection  with  the  Old  Testament  laws  on  this 
subject,  it  here  proves  that  involuntary  servitude,  unpaid  la- 
bor, the  labor  of  slaves  without  hire,  is  wrong.  It  is  a  sin 
against  God,  the  denunciation  of  which  covers  every  case. 
"  Wo  to  him  that  useth  his  neighbor's  service  without  wages, 
and  giveth  him  not  for  his  work."  If  it  was  not  permitted  to 
take  a  man's  service  without  wages,  much  more  not  to  take 
himself  as  a  chattel,  a  slave.  If  it  was  forbidden,  in  every 
case,  so  to  oppress  a  man  as  to  compel  him  to  labor  without 
hire,  much  more  was  it  forbidden,  much  more  was  it  criminal 
in  the  sight  of  God,  and  a  much  greater  cruelty  against  man, 
to  degrade  the  man  himself  to  the  condition  of  a  horse,  or  an 
ox,  compelling  him  to  labor  perpetually  without  wages,  as  a 
slave. 

In  other  words,  if  to  steal  the  man's  wages  was  forbidden, 
how  much  more  to  steal  the  man  himself.  And  especially 
when,  as  in  the  case  of  American  slavery,  the  stealing  of  the 
man  is  followed  by  the  stealing  of  his  children,  and  his  chil- 
dren's children,  to  all  generations,  as  a  legal  consequence  and 
necessity,  the  children  of  the  stolen  parents  being  affirmed  to 
have  been  born  in  slavery,  and  therefore  having  no  right  to 
any  other  status,  that  status  itself  being  affirmed,  even  by  di- 
vines, to  be  the  holy  providence  of  God,  irreversib'le  and  right- 
eous !  What  exasperation  and  complication  of  iniquity ! 

*  ESCHENBERG.  Grecian  Antiquities,  §  99.  EDWARDS.  Slavery  in  An- 
cient Greece.  Bib.  Rep.,  voL  5. 


SEBVANTS   AT  THE   WEDDING.  369 

Luke  xii.  37-47,  the  parable  of  the  servants  waiting  for 
the  Lord's  return  from  the  wedding.  Blessed  are  those  ser- 
vants, or  dovXoL ;  and  the  word  servants  is  used  six  times  in 
that  form,  dovkog.  That  it  does  not  mean  slaves  is  very  clear 
from  the  37th  verse,  where  it  is  said  that  their  Lord  would  gird 
himself,  and  make  them  to  sit  down  to  meat,  and  come  forth 
and  serve  them.  The  ol^ovopog  in  this  parable,  the  faithful 
and  wise  steward,  verse  42,  is  called,  43,  45,  46,  dovAof,  and 
his  fellow  servants  are  called,  verse  45,  nalda^  icai  iraidionag, 
and  the  household  described  being  a  Jewish  family  and  house- 
hold, the  words  used  mean  just  what  the  same  words  would 
mean  in  the  Old  Testament,  a  household  of  free  servants,  with 
the  head  servant,  or  steward,  over  the  whole.  Such  an  office, 
as  far  back  as  the  days  of  Abraham,  was  that  of  the  eldest  ser- 
vant of  his  house,  Eliezer  of  Damascus,  Gen.  xv.  2  and  xxiv.  2. 
Always,  in  all  Hebrew  families,  it  was  a  free  and  honorable 
office  and  service,  and  the  stewardship  was  over  free  ser- 
vants, according  to  the  strictness  of  the  Jewish  law,  and  not 
slaves. 

Our  Lord  depicted,  in  this  parable,  a  family  under  that  law, 
and  not  a  Greek  or  Roman  family  or  household,  not  the  do- 
mestic institutions  of  any  heathen  nation,  but  of  the  Jews ;  and 
of  the  Jews  as  subject  to  the  Mosaic  laws,  and  maintaining 
them.  The  responsibility  of  the  servants,  and  of  the  steward 
as  a  faithful  and  wise  servant  over  the  rest,  was  what  Peter 
and  the  other  disciples,  who  asked  if  the  parable  applied  par- 
ticularly to  them,  could  well  understand,  in  the  system  of  free, 
voluntary  Hebrew  service,  but  nowhere  else  ;  and  nowhere 
else  could  any  original  be  found  of  the  grateful,  affectionate 
communion  and  relation  of  mutual  confidence,  labor  and  re- 
ward, between  the  master  of  the  household  and  his  servants. 
If  the  household  service  of  the  Hebrews  had  not  been  a  free 
service,  if  their  servants  had  not  been  voluntary  servants  for 
wages,  those  customs  would  have  been  totally  unfit  for  an 
illustration  of  the  service  of  the  Saviour  and  of  the  household 


3*70  SERVANTS    OP   THE   PHARISEES. 

of  faith.  The  service  and  responsibility  of  freemen,  working 
for  reward,  and  not  of  degraded  chattels  without  wages,  were 
as  necessary  for  the  ground- work  of  these  beautiful  parables 
as  the  system  of  Jewish  sacrifices  was  essential  for  a  prophetic 
illustration  of  the  atonement  by  the  Messiah. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  domestic  pictures  contained  in  the 
fourteenth  chapter,  which  are  all  Jewish,  founded  on  the  very 
scenes  beheld  by  the  Saviour  in  the  house  of  one  of  the  chief 
Pharisees,  with  whom  he  was  a  visitor.  The  whole  parable, 
verses  16-24,  is  of  Jewish  life.  It  is  a  Jew,  like  the  Pharisee 
that  had  invited  our  Lord,  who  is  supposed  to  have  made  a 
great  supper,  and  bidden  many ;  and  the  servants  whom  he 
sends  are  Jewish  servants,  who  could  not  possibly  be  slaves  ; 
there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  slavery  in  existence  in  a  Jew- 
ish household,  under  the  law  of  God. 

It  is  not  a  luxurious,  proud  Roman  noble's  household  of 
chattel  slavery  and  pomp  that  our  blessed  Lord  is  here  de- 
scribing, but  a  household  of  which  the  very  family  in  whose 
presence  he  was  teaching,  at  whose  board  he  was  sitting,  of 
whose  hospitality  he  was  partaking,  formed  the  counterpart ; 
and  he  was  appealing  to  their  own  well-known  and  familiar 
habits  and  usages.  In  this  parable,  as  in  the  preceding,  the 
word  dovXo<;  is  the  word  employed  for  servant,  as  it  is  the 
Greek  word  commonly  used  in  the  Septuagint  translation  of 
the  Old  Testament,  where  the  servants  of  the  Hebrews  are 
mentioned  ;  and  it  means  the  same  kind  of  servant  here  that  it 
does  there,  the  free  Hebrew  servant,  but  not  the  slave.  The 
word  dovkog  no  more  means  slave  in  New  Testament  Greek 
than  it  meant  slave  in  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint,  where  it 
was  employed  to  denote  the  voluntary,  free,  hired  and  paid 
servants  in  the  families  of  the  Hebrews. 

Luke  xii.  36-47.  "  Blessed  are  those  servants,  dovhot, 
whom  the  Lord,  when  he  cometh,  shall  find  watching."  The 
description  is  of  free  servants,  not  slaves,  these  latter  not  be- 
ing the  subjects  of  reward  for  good  behavior.  It  is  a  pic- 


PARABLE   OF   THE   PKODIGAL  SON".  371 

tare  of  free  JeAvish  service,  and  the  word  dovkog  is  used  in 
verses  37,  38,  43,  45,  46,  47,  six  times.  A  peculiarity  in  this 
parable,  or  rather  a  peculiar  proof  of  the  freedom  of  all  this 
service,  is  the  fact  that  the  word  okovd/zof,  that  faithful  and 
wise  steward,  a  freeman,  unquestionably,  is  used  as  synony- 
mous with  dovAo^,  and  dovkog  as  a  synonyme  of  okovo/zo?-,  af- 
fording another  demonstration  of  dou/tof  as  not  necessarily 
meaning  a  slave,  but  employed  to  designate  a  voluntary  paid 
servant. 

Luke  15:  11-32,  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son.  Three 
things  of  great  importance  are  to  be  marked  in  this  parable. 
First,  the  servants  in  this  household  are  [uaOiot,  hired  servants. 
They  are  all  such  ;  there  is  no  hint  of  any  other ;  for  not  only 
is  it  the  exclamation  of  the  prodigal,  "  How  many  hired  ser- 
vants of  my  father  have  bread  enough  and  to  spare,"  but, 
when  in  the  agony  of  self-abasement,  he  deems  himself  un- 
worthy of  so  much  as  the  lowest  place,  and  selects  the  most 
inferior  station  in  his  mind,  as  the  only  thing  he  could  dare 
ask  for,  he  says,  "  Make  me  as  one  of  thy  hired  servants !" 

Second,  these  hired  servants  are  called  generically  dovXoi  ; 
a  distinct  proof,  added  to  many  others,  demonstrating  that 
dovhog  does  not  necessarily  mean  slave,  but  may  mean  a  free 
servant,  and  generally  in  the  New  Testament  does  mean  such, 
being  generally  used  for  the  servants  among  the  Jews,  who 
were  all  free.  "  But  his  father  said  to  his  servants,"  dovhovg, 
verse  22.  Again,  in  verse  26,  the  same  dovkot,  servants,  are 
called  iraiduv,  certainly  not  slaves  /  the  eldest  son  describes 
them  as  mwdwv,  servants. 

Third,  the  eldest  son  describes  his  own  service  of  his  father 
under  the  word  6ov Aeucj,  which,  had  it  been  used  respecting  a 
servant,  it  would  have  been  contended  was  a  proof  positive  of 
the  servant  being  a  slave.  But  here  the  service  of  a  free  per- 
son,  and  not  only  a  free  person  but  a  son,  and  not  only  so,  but 
the  eldest  son  and  heir,  is  called  dovkevetv  ;  showing  that  no 
argument  can  be  instituted  either  from  the  use  of  this  verb  or 


372  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SERVANTS. 

from  the  corresponding  noun,  to  prove  that  the  service  indi- 
cated is  that  of  slavery.  It  may  be  that  of  persons  perfectly 
free.  The  SEPTTJAGINT  uses  the  word  dovXevan  in  Ex.  xxi.,  6, 
and  elsewhere  of  the  service  of  a  Hebrew,  voluntary  and  free. 

Fourth,  to  these  considerations  it  may  be  added  that  when 
the  prodigal  son  was  reduced  to  misery  in  his  wanderings 
into  a  far  country,  he  went  and  joined  himself  (e/co/U.r/07?), 
engaged  himself,  bound  or  apprenticed  himself,  to  a  citizen  of 
that  country,  who  sent  him  into  his  fields  to  feed  swine.  This 
was  analogous  to  the  case  supposed  in  Lev.  xxv.,  47,  of  a  He- 
brew falling  poor,  and  selling  himself  to  a  heathen.  If  the 
transaction  had  been  described  in  the  customary  language  of 
the  country  of  old,  it  would  have  been  that  his  employer 
bought  him,  and  that  he  sold  himself.  If  that  citizen  had  de- 
scribed the  transaction,  he  would  have  said,  "  I  have  purchased 
me  a  new  swine-herd  to-day ;  I  met  a  wandering  Jew,  and 
bought  him  for  so  much  money,  and  sent  him  at  once  to  feed 
swine."  Yet  the  purchase  was  a  voluntary  contract,  as  vol- 
untary on  the  part  of  the  prodigal  selling  himself  as  on  the 
part  of  the  farmer  hiring,  or  as  the  Hebrew  phrase  was,  buy- 
ing him.  The  whole  parable  is  a  most  striking  picture  of  a 
state  of  society  where  freedom  and  not  slavery  prevailed. 
The  piadioi,  the  hired  servants,  did  not  have  to  pay  their  own 
board  out  of  their  wages,  nor  was  it  considered  that  they  had 
just  and  equal  wages,  because  they  had  an  allowance  for  their 
food,  and  sufficient  sackcloth  for  their  garments.  They  had 
food  enough  and  to  spare,  besides  their  just  and  equal  wages. 

The  poor  miserable  prodigal,  even  after  his  engagement  as 
a  swine-herd,  was  still  a  free  servant,  on  a  voluntary  engage- 
ment, although  perhaps  his  master  would  have  described  him 
as  being  his  money,  and  as  having  been  bought  by  him.  Yet 
he  was  at  perfect  liberty  to  leave  his  service,  and  return  to 
his  home  if  he  chose,  as  the  result  proves.  His  master  had 
no  power  or  claim  over  him  as  property,  and  no  hint  is  given 
of  any  imagination  or  purpose  of  sending  a  marshal  or  a  blood- 


THE   UNJUST   STEWARD.  373 

hound  after  him  as  a  fugitive  slave.  He  takes  his  line  of 
inarch  direct  for  his  father's  house  without  so  much  as  con- 
sulting with  his  master. 

Luke  xvi.,  1-13,  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  who  had  a 
steward,  the  unjust  steward.  Compare  the  oltcovofios  in  this 
parable  with  that  in  chapter  xii.,  42,  and  it  is  found  that  the 
office  is  the  same,  and  the  servant  holding  it  is  beyond  ques- 
tion a  freeman,  as  among  the  Jews  he  never  could  be  other- 
wise, for  they  received  their  customs  neither  from  Greeks  nor 
Romans,  nor  any  other  Pagans,  but  from  Moses  and  from 
God.  • 

That  the  steward  here  was  a  perfectly  free  servant,  is  plain 
from  his  very  trial  and  dismissal  by  his  master,  his  employer, 
and  his  own  complaint,  that  having  had  the  stewardship  taken 
away  from  him,  he  was  no  longer  in  his  master's  employment, 
no  longer  had  any  claim  of  salary  for  service,  no  longer,  there- 
fore, any  means  of  subsistence ;  for  he  was  not  accustomed  to 
labor,  he  was  too  proud  to  beg,  and,  being  turned  out  of  his 
stewardship  for  malversation  of  office,  no  other  man  would 
hire  him.  Now  there  is  nothing  described  of  this  steward 
peculiar ;  such  as  he  was,  except,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  his  rascal- 
ity, such  were  all  stewards,  such  they  always  had  been,  from 
the  time  of  Abraham's  Eliezer,  who  was  no  more  a  slave  than 
this  man  in  our  Lord's  parable  was  a  slave.  The  office  and 
the  service  were  always  those  of  freemen.  Yet  the  service 
is  referred  to  under  the  word  6ovkeveiv,  proving  that  that 
word  in  the  New  Testament  means  a  free  service,  and  not 
the  service  of  a  slave. 

This  is  strikingly  confirmed  by  our  Lord's  own  argument 
inverse  13,  "No  servant  can  serve  two  masters;  for  either 
he  will  hate  the  one  and  love  the  other,  or  else  he  will  hold  to 
the  one  and  despise  the  other.  Ye  can  not  serve  God  and 
Mammon."  Ye  can  not  dovkeveiv  God  and  Mammon. 

Here  (verse  13)  the  word  for  servant  is  okerT/f,  and  its  appli, 
cation  is  generic,  all  sorts  of  servants ;  yet  in  all  cases  it  is  sup- 


374  CHOICE    OF    EMPLOYEES. 

posed  to  be  a  free  service,  a  service  of  voluntary  choice  and 
contract,  for  upon  that  point  the  pith  and  gist  of  the  argument 
depend.  The  service  supposed  is  not  a  compulsory  one,  about 
which  the  servant  can  have  no  will  nor  choice,  nor  about  his 
master,  or  the  choice  of  a  master  ;  as  it  is  well  known  no  slave 
is  ever  consulted  as  to  whether  he  will  choose  to  serve  his  own 
master  or  prefers  to  run  away,  or  enter  into  the  employment 
of  another.  This  attribute  of  choosing  one's  employer  is  the 
attribute  of  a  freeman,  not  of  a  slave.  And  while  the  word 
used  is  oiKKTr]<;,  which  here  certainly  means  a  free  servant,  and 
is  taken  generically  for  all  seurants,  the  word  descriptive  of 
the  service  is  dov Xeveiv,  which,  therefore,  can  not  possibly  here 
mean  slave-service,  or  to  serve  as  a  slave. 

It  is,  therefore,  proved  that  a  man  might  be  held  dovfavEiv^ 
to  perform  the  office  of  a  dovAof,  and  yet  be  a  free  servant, 
free  to  choose  his  service  and  his  employer,  free  to  continue 
in  his  employer's  service,  or  to  quit  it,  and  bind  himself  to 
another,  or,  in  the  language  of  the  parable,  hold  to  another, 
just  as  he  pleased.  Nothing  can  be  more  satisfactory  than 
this  demonstration  ;  the  more  so  because  it  is  generic,  intended 
purposely  to  cover  all  cases,  and  the  same  word,  used  to  sig- 
nify the  service  of  man,  is  also  used  to  signify  the  free  volun- 
tary service  of  God,  and  that  word  is  dovheveiv.  If  the  argu- 
ment had  been  concerning  slavery  or  slaves,  it  would  certainly 
have  run  in  this  style,  namely,  that  no  man  can  serve  two  mas- 
ters, for  he  is  the  property  of  one  only,  and  has  no  will  or 
choice  of  his  own. 

The  possibility  of  a  question  between  the  service  of  two 
masters,  the  possibility  of  hesitating  or  doubting,  is  founded 
on  the  fact  of  being  able  to  choose,  the  fact  of  the  service  be- 
ing voluntary,  and  not  compulsory,  a  compact  with  one  of  the 
two,  which  can  not  be  made  with  both.  Being  made,  the 
whole  service  of  the  man  choosing  that  master  belongs  to  him, 
and  on  the  part  of  a  faithful  servant  will  be  given  to  him,  for 
it  can  not  be  given  to  two,  and  especially  if  the  two  are  op- 


FREE   HOUSEHOLD    SERVANTS.  375 

posed,  the  servant  mnst  inevitably  be  loyal  to  the  one  and 
opposed  to  the  other. 

Luke  xvii.  5-10.  The  apostles,  in  answer  to  their  prayer, 
"  Lord,  increase  our  faith,"  are  addressed  by  our  Lord  with 
the  apothegm,  or  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  their  faith  is 
to  be  increased  by  working.  "  Which  of  you,  having  a  ser- 
vant plowing  or  feeding  cattle,  will  say  unto  him,  when  he 
has  come  from  the  field,  go  and  sit  down  to  meat  ?"  etc.,  etc. 
Here  the  word  for  servant  is  JovAof,  and  it  is  employed  three 
times,  in  verses  7,  9,  10,  and  the  word  for  service  is  not 
dov Aevetv,  but  Siaitovei,  verse  8.  Several  things  of  importance 
in  the  argument  are  gathered  here. 

1.  These  dovkoi  were  of  the  same  class  with  the  olnerai 
mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter  as  free  servants.     They 
were  olKKTai,  servant^  belonging  to  the  house,  and  employed 
to  wait  upon  table.     But  they  were  also  dov/tot,  employed  as 
plowmen  and  herdsmen,  laboring  in  the  field  and  in  the  care 
of  the  flocks.    They  were  fiiaOtot,  hired  servants,  although  at 
the  same  time  <5ovAot,  as  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son ; 
and  they  were  olKKTai,  house  servants,  at  the  same  time,  their 
service  in  the  house  being  a  dianovtav,  or  ministry  personal  at 
the  table  of  the  master. 

2.  These  are  supposed  to  be  servants  of  the  apostles;  that 
is  the  very  case  put  by  our  blessed  Lord  ;  and,  therefore,  from 
the  necessity  of  the  case  they  could  not  be  slaves^  for  no  He- 
brew could  either  be  a  slave  himself,  or  hold  others  as  slaves, 
as  property.     This  was  forbidden  in  their  law,  and  our  Lord 
would  no  more  have  supposed  the  possibility  of  one  of  the 
apostles  holding  slaves  than  of  his  having  a  dozen  wives. 

3.  The  apostles  are  called  dovXoi,  and  are  put  upon  the  same 
level,  as  to  our  Lord,  with  the  servants  of  their  own  house- 
holds, that  is,  persons  engaged  to  a  voluntary  service,  which 
they  rightfully  owe,  not  as  being  property  or  chattels,  but  as 
having  chosen  their  own  lord  and  master,  on  being  chosen  by 


376  NO  PROPERTY  TK  SLAVES. 

him.  The  whole  argument  from  this  case  is  of  extraordinary 
power. 

Luke  xviii.  22-29,  and  xix.  8,  are  passages  presenting  some 
interesting  considerations  bearing  on  our  investigation.  "  Sell 
all  that  thou  hast,  and  distribute  unto  the  poor,"  was  our  blessed 
Lord's  command  to  the  rich  ruler.  It  is  manifest  that  human 
beings  could  not  have  been  included  by  our  Lord  in  this 
man's  property,  by  the  sale  of  whom,  and  distribution  of  the 
profits,  he  was  to  have  treasure  in  heaven.  And  so,  when  he 
said,  "  There  is  no  man  that  hath  left  house,  or  parents,  or 
brethren,  or  wife,  or  children  for  the  kingdom  of  God's  sake," 
there  is  no  enumeration  of  slaves  as  any  part  of  the  man's 
possessions  to  be  relinquished,  as  there  must  have  been  if  they 
were  the  most  valuable  of  his  properties.  And  just  so  in  the 
case  of  Zaccheus,  "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give 
to  the  poor ;  and  if  I  have  taken  away  any  thing  from  any 
man  by  false  accusation,  I  restore  him  fourfold,"  it  is  not  to 
be  supposed  here  that  this  converted  man  gives  the  half  of  his 
slaves,  or  the  profits  of  their  sale,  to  the  poor,  or  that  he  has 
any  slaves  among  his  property.  The  incidental  argument 
against  the  possibility  of  slavery  is  worth  noting  in  these 
graphic  pictures  of  society.* 

Luke  xix.  13-22.  In  this  passage  we  have  the  parable  of  a 
nobleman  going  into  a  far  country,  to  receive  a  kingdom,  and 
to  return.  And  he  calls  his  servants,  dovkovg,  or  ten  of  his 
servants,  and  commands  them  to  take  charge  of  his  business 
(occupy)  till  he  returns.  "  The  word  (UpayparevaaaOf)  sig- 
nifies literally  and  in  the  classical  writers,  to  be  engaged  hi 
business ;  but  here  it  is  used  as  a  deponent  in  the  sense  to  do 
business  with  by  investment  in  trade."  The  noun  is  used 
both  in  the  classical  writers  and  the  Septuagint  to  denote  a 


*  The  case  may  remind  us  of  the  holder,    was    accustomed    to   pray, 

anecdote  concerning  a  slave  owned  "  Lord,  bless  our  slave  Tom,    espe- 

by  two    men,  one  of  whom,    being  daily  my  half  of  him!" 
professedly  a  devout  Christian  slave- 


NOT  A  SLAVE.  377 

merchant.     But  the  term  in  Matthew  is  epyageadai. — BLOOM- 
FIELD,  in  loc. 

When  he  returns,  he  reckons  with  his  servants,  these  mer- 
chants in  charge  of  his  property,  dovXovg,  verse  15.  Well 
done,  good  servant,  dovhe,  verse  17  ;  and  he  gives  him  au- 
thority of  over  ten  cities,  and  the  next  over  five.  Then  in 
verse  22,  Thou  wicked  servant,  dovXe. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  here,  1.  It  is  a  clear  case  of  the  word 
dovhog  not  meaning  a  slave.  It  is  not  to  be  pretended  that 
these  servants,  dovXoi,  were  slaves.  The  business  committed 
to  them,  the  occupations  in  which  they  were  engaged,  and  the 
governments  with  which  they  were  intrusted,  forbid  any  such 
supposition. 

2.  The  answer  of  the  servant  with  the  one  talent  would 
have  been  impossible  to  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  slave  to  his 
master.  It  is  the  answer  of  a  man  who  conceives  himself  at 
liberty  to  refuse  the  service,  if  he  pleases,  and  to  give  what 
reason  he  pleases.  And  accordingly  the  punishment  here  is 
merely  the  taking  away  of  the  commission  and  the  property 
from  him,  and  bestowing  it  upon  another,  while  the  unwilling 
servant  is  dismissed.  He  is  not  treated  as  a  slave. 

Luke  xx.,  9-12.  A  certain  man  planted  a  vineyai'd,  etc.,  the 
parable  of  the  wicked  husbandman.  At  the  season  he  sent  a 
servant,  verse  fo,  dovXov,  and  verse  11,  another  servant, 
doOAov.  Here  the  husbandman  is  a  Hebrew,  the  scene  being 
of  Jewish  life  and  occupation,  and  the  servants  such  as  the 
Jews  were  accustomed  to  employ,  such,  for  example,  as  we 
find  in  the  beautiful  descriptions  of  rural  life  in  the  book  of 
Ruth.  There  is  no  possibility  of  construing  dovkov  in  this 
place  as  meaning  slave.  It  has  the  same  sense,  borne  by  the 
same  word,  in  the  multitude  of  cases  in  the  Septuagint,  as  in 
the  New  Testament,  signifying  a  servant,  but  not  a  slave. 

Luke  xxii.,  26,  27.  "  He  that  is  chief  as  he  that  doth  serve. 
For  whether  is  greater,  he  that  sitteth  at  meat,  or  he  that 
serveth  ?  But  I  am  among  you  as  he  that  serveth,"  6iaicov&v. 


378  Aou/lOf   NOT   A   SLAVE. 

Compare  John  xiii.,  16.  The  servant  is  not  above  his  master, 
dovkog  being  used  the  same  as  diaKovog,  and  in  this  case  the 
signification  of  slave  in  either  passage  impossible.  Compare, 
also,  Phil,  ii.,  7.  "  Took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant,"  cer- 
tainly not  of  a  slave,  but  a  servant,  who  voluntarily  endures 
"  for  the  joy  set  before  him." 

Luke  xxii.,  50.  A  servant  of  the  high  priest,  dov^ov.  Com- 
pare Matt,  xxvi.,  51,  and  John  xviii.,  10.  The  servant  in  this 
case  being  a  Jew,  Malchus  by  name,  we  have  another  demon- 
stration of  the  employment  of  the  Greek  word  dovkog  to  sig- 
nify not  a  slave,  but  a  free  servant.  For  such  Malchus  cer- 
tainly was.* 

Luke  xxii.,  56,  57.  "But  a  certain  maid  beheld  him," 
(TratdioKrjJ.  The  word  here  employed  is  the  same  used  in 
Luke  xii.,  45,  the  men  servants  and  maidens,  in  John  xviii., 
17,  in  Acts  xii.,  13,  in  Matt,  xxvi.,  69,  in  Mark  xiv.,  66,  69. 
That  it  here  means  a  free  servant,  certainly  not  a  slave,  is  ren- 
dered probable  by  the  style  of  Peter's  address  :  "  Woman 
(yvvai),  I  know  him  not."  This  was  the  manner  in  which  our 
Lord  addressed  his  own  mother  at  the  marriagef  (John  ii.,  4), 
and  on  the  cross  (John  xix.,  26).  It  is  not  the  mode  of  ad- 
dressing slaves,  not  the  word  that  Peter  would  have  used, 
had  it  been  a  slave  he  was  answering.J  Compare  the  cases 
of  its  use  in  Matt.  15.,  28,  Luke  xiii.,  12,  J«hn  iv.,  21 ;  xix., 
26;  xx.,  13,  and  1  Cor.  vii.,  16.  The  manner  of  address  is 
that  of  courtesy,  kindness,  respect.§ 

RatdiaKT)  is  used  so  often,  in  the  Septuagint,  of  free  maid- 
ens (as  in  Ruth  iv.,  12,  of  the  wife  of  Boaz),  that  its  use  in 
the  New  Testament  (especially  Gal.  iv.,  22-31)  must  be  judged 
accordingly.  Only  in  Acts  xvi.,  16,  is  there  any  application 
of  it  to  a  slave,  the  slave  only  of  a  keathen. 

*  See  LIGHTFOOT  on  the  passage,  \  See  yvvai,  as  used  by  HERODOTUS, 

works,  voL  xii.  p.  397.  Thalia.  134. 

f  BLOOMFIELD,  on  John,  K  T.  §  ALFORD,  K  T.  Note  on  John 

"A  form  of  address  used  even  to  the  L,  4.  Also  ROBINSON,  Lex.,  in  verb., 

most  dignified  persons."  yvvij. 


CHAPTER     XXXIII. 

EVIDENCE  FROM  TUB  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN  AND  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

JOHN  ii.,  5,  9.  The  marriage  at  Cana,  and  the  servants. 
His  mother  saith  unto  the  servants,  diatcovoig,  verse  5.  But 
the  servants  knew,  didnovoi,  verse  9.  Here,  also,  it  is  a  Jew- 
ish household.  There  are  no  slaves  in  the  family,  but  the 
usual  retinue  of  servants  on  a  bridal  occasion.  Had  the  word 
dovXoi  been  used,  the  meaning  would  have  been  the  same,  not 
slaves,  but  the  servants,  hired  as  free  servants,  according  to 
the  Jewish  law. 

John  iv.,  36.  "  And  he  that  reapeth  receiveth  wages."  The 
reapers  were  not  a  peculiarly  privileged  class  of  laborers  or 
servants,  but  were  on  the  same  level  with  all  other  workmen. 
The  receiving  wages  is  named  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
possibility  is  never  even  intimated  of  men  being  compelled  to 
work  without  wages,  and  wages  are  the  certain  mark  of  free- 
dom and  free  labor. 

John  iv.,  46-51.  The  nobleman  at  Cana,  whose  son  was  sick 
at  Capernaum.  The  term  for  nobleman  is  EaatXiKog,  courtier, 
nobleman,  according  to  Robinson  and  others,  "  but  whether 
holding  any  office  or  not,"  says  Bloomfield,  "  or  whether  a 
Jew  or  a  foreigner,  is  uncertain."  "  The  man  seems  to  have 
been  a  Jew." — ALFORD,  in  loc.  Capernaum  was  some  twenty- 
five  miles  from  Cana,  and  while  he  was  returning  home,  the 
servants  of  his  family  met  him,  8ovXoi.  In  Cana  the  servants 
are  called  didttovoi,  in  Capernaum,  dovhoi.  Being  both  Jew- 
ish families,  the  servants  were  doubtless  free  in  the  one  case 
as  in  the  other.  There  was  a  synagogue  at  Capernaum  where 


380  USAGE   IN   JOHN. 

our  Lord  publicly  taught,  and  where  this  whole  believing 
family  may  have  heard  him. 

John  viii.,  34,  35,  36.  The  servant  of  sin,  dovkog.  "VVe  were 
never  in  bondage  to  any  one,  said  the  Jews,  but  are  the  chil- 
dren of  Abraham.  How  then  sayest  thou,  Ye  shall  be  made 
free  ?  So  far  as  the  state  of  slavery  is  here  brought  into  view, 
it  is  with  reprobation  and  horror  of  it,  as  a  state  to  which  no 
man  could  be  justly  assigned  but  for  crime.  Our  Lord's  ar- 
gument is,  that  freedom  from  earthly  bondage  is  indeed  a 
blessing,  but  that  a  man  might  be  what  is  called  a  free  man, 
and  free  born,  as  they  claimed  to  be  from  Abraham,  and  yet 
the  slave  of  sin  and  Satan.  But  there  was  another  and  a 
higher  freedom,  the  spiritual,  by  the  truth  and  the  love  of  it, 
and  obedience  to  righteousness ;  and  if  the  Son  made  them 
free,  then  they  would  be  free  indeed. 

John  x.,  12,  13.  "  The  hireling  fleeth  because  he  is  a  hire- 
ling," [uadu-bg,  a  hired  servant.  Compare  Luke  x.,  7,  "  the 
laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire."  It  is  clear  that  those  employed 
in  the  class  of  employments  here  designated  were  not  slaves, 
but  free  hired  servants.  Compare  Luke  xvii.,  7,  "  which  of  you, 
having  a  servant,  dovkov,  feeding  cattle,"  etc.,  Troifiatvovra, 
feeding  sheep,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  house  servants 
and  the  field  servants  were  of  the  same  grade,  and  were  hired 
servants,  and  not  slaves.  The  argument  is  very  forcible. 

John  xii.,  2.  At  Bethany,  where  they  made  for  our  Lord  a 
feast,  and  Martha  served,  dirjKovei,  did  the  work  of  an  attend- 
ant, a  servant. 

John  xii.,  26.  "  Where  I  am,  there  shall  my  servant  be," 
diaKovog.  The  word  is  used  to  signify  a  free  service,  and  not  the 
service  of  a  slave.  But  the  word  dovho$  being  employed  in  the 
same  connection,  for  the  same  service,  also  means  a  free  servant. 

John  xiii.,  16.  The  servant  is  not  greater  than  his  Lord. 
Here  the  word  used  is  (JoD/lof,  and  the  service  is  the  SiaKoviav, 
or  ministry,  the  doer  of  which  is  called,  in  verse  26  of  chapter 
xii.,  Siaitovos,  not  a  slave,  but  a  free  servant.  Our  blessed 


USAGE   IN   JOHN.  381 

Lord  himself  performed  the  work  of  a  servant  in  washing  his 
disciples'  feet.  And  on  that  occasion  he  said,  I  am  among 
you  as  one  that  serveth,  SKLKOV&V.  Luke  xxii.,  27.  "And  if 
I,  your  Lord  and  Master,  have  washed  your  feet,  ye  also  ought 
to  wash  one  another's  feet.  For  the  servant,  6ovXog,  is  not 
greater  than  his  master."  Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that 
the  word  here  does  not  mean  a  slave,  but  a  free,  voluntary 
servant. 

John  xv.,  15,  20.  "  I  call  you  no  more  servants,  dovkovg,  but 
friends.  The  servant,  dovAog,  is  not  greater  than  his  Lord." 
Compare  John  xii.,  26,  and  Matthew  x.,  25.  The  comparison 
of  passages  proves  incontrovertibly  that  it  is  a  free,  voluntary 
service,  and  that  the  word  6ovkog  is  used  concerning  such  a 
servant,  and  not  to  signify  a  slave. 

John  xviii.,  10,  18,  26,  36.  Peter  struck  a  servant,  dovkog, 
of  the  high  priest.  The  servant's  name  was  Malchus.  In 
verse  26  one  of  the  servants,  dovkov,  the  kinsman  of  Malchus. 
In  verse  18,  the  servants,  dovkoi,  and  the  officers,  vm^perai. 
In  verse  3,  a  band  and  officers  of  the  priests  and  Pharisees. 
Malchus  was  one  of  these,  and  is  called  dovhog.  He  could  not 
have  been  a  slave,  and  so  here  is  another  incontrovertible  in- 
stance in  which  the  word  dovkog  is  applied  to  a  person  beyond 
controversy  a  free  man.  The  name  of  the  servant  of  the  high 
priest  is  Jewish,  as  noted  by  Lightfoot,  "  Malchus,  a  name 
very  much  in  use  among  the  Jews,  Neh.  x.,  4,  27."*  Malchus 
and  his  kinsman  being  Jews,  could  not  possibly  have  been 
slaves,  but,  though  called  dovhoi,  were  free  men  in  the  condi- 
tion of  servants^ 

*  LIGHTFOOT,  Hebrew  and  Talmud-  ever,  obtained  the  rights  of  citizens, 

ical   exercitatious  on  John.     "Works,  Tho  word,  therefore,  could  not  mean 

v.,  12.  slaves,  exclusively.    ESCHENBERG,  Gr. 

f  In  confirmation  of  this  and  the  Antiq.,  99. 

preceding  testimony  as  to  usage,  we  " Slaves," says Archb.  POTTER,  "as 

have  the    knowledge  that   freedmen  long  as  they  were  under  the  govern- 

themselves,  among  the  Greeks,  were  ment  of  a  master,  were  called  OIKETO.I, 

still  termed  tiovhot,   and  seldom,   if  but  after  their  freedom  was  granted 


382  USAGE   IN   ACTS. 

EVIDENCE    FROM   THE   ACTS    OF   THE   APOSTLES. 

Acts  ii.,  44,  45.  "  They  had  all  things  common. — And  they 
sold  their  possessions  and  goods,  and  parted  them  to  all  men, 
as  every  man  had  need."  There  were  thousands  in  this  com- 
munity, and  they  were  speedily  increased  by  thousands  more. 
If  slavery  had  been  an  institution  of  God,  slaves  would  inevi- 
tably have  been  among  the  most  valuable  of  the  possessions 
of  these  men.  Did  they  sell  their  slaves,  and  put  the  money 
into  their  Christian  treasury  ?  Did  Barnabas  do  this  ?  It  is 
well  known  that  the  early  Christians  applied  their  offerings 
sometimes  to  the  purchase  of  their  brethren  out  of  heathen 
slavery.  Did  they  regard  them  in  the  church  as  goods  and 
chattels  ?*  The  absurdity  of  the  supposition  is  palpable. 

Acts  ii.,  18.     And  upon  my  servants  and  handmaidens  will 
I  pour  out  my  Spirit,  dov^ovg  and  dovkag,  certainly  not  slaves- 
Acts  iv.,  25,  thy  servant  David,  naidog. 
Acts  iv.,  29.     Grant  unto  thy  servants,  dovkoig,  not  slaves, 
for  they  are  the  servants  of  the  Most  High. 

Acts  x.,  7.  The  case  of  Cornelius,  the  centurion  in  Cesarea  : 
"  Two  of  his  household  servants,"  olneruv,  by  no  means  nec- 
essarily slaves;  and  as  to  "  those  who  waited  on  him,"  it  is 
noted  by  Bloomfield  that  centurions  were  allowed  to  use  some 
of  their  soldiers  in  the  capacity  of  domestics. — BLOOMFIELD, 
in  loc.  If  this  man  were  a  Jewish  proselyte  his  household  were 
under  the  law  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  Compare  Luke  xvi., 
13.  This  word  onterrig  is  employed  in  the  Septuagint  where 
slave  could  not  be  meant.  Robinson  gives  as  its  just  meaning 

them,  they  were  dovhoi,  not  being,  among  the  Christians  as  the  sale  of  a 

like  the  former,  a  part  of  the  master's  slave,  but  that  the  masters  set  them 

estate,  but  only  obliged  to  some  small  free.  He  enjoins  the  purchase  and 

services.  POTTER,  Antiq.  of  Greece,  completion  of  their  freedom,  and  giv- 

vol.  ii.,  page  78.  ing  them  trades,  that  they  might  sup- 

NEANDER,  Church  Hist.  Works  of  port  themselves.  Slavery,  he  says, 

Christian  Piety,  vol.  iiL,  356.  would  cease  if  there  were  a  true 

*  CHRTSOSTOM,  cited  in  Neander,  Christian  feeling.  NEANDER.  Life 

affirms  that  there  was  no  such  thing  of  CHRYSOSTOM,  414 


USAGE   IN   ACTS.  383 

a  house  companion.  Liddell  and  Scott,  an  inmate  of  one's 
house,  with  instances  of  its  being  used  fbr  the  free  women  and 
children,  and  opposed  to  dovkog. 

Acts  xii.,  13,  14.  "  And  as  Peter  knocked  at  the  door  of  the 
gate,  a  damsel  came  to  hearken,  named  Rhoda.  And  when 
she  knew  Peter's  voice,  she  opened  not  the  gate  for  gladness, 
but  ran  in  and  told  how  Peter  stood  before  the  gate."  (See  on 
Matt,  xxvi.,  69,  page  364.)  This  damsel,  TraidtoKTj,  was  a  ser- 
vant in  a  Jewish  family,  but  not  a  slave.  She  was  a  Christian 
servant,  and  the  familiarity  and  affectionate  intimacy  and 
equality  of  her  intercourse  in  the  household,  with  her  joyful 
recognition  of  Peter  by  his  voice,  and  her  subsequent  conduct, 
are  characteristic  of  freedom,  not  slavery. 

Acts  xvi.,  16,  17.  The  damsel,  iraidlaKrj,  possessed  with  the 
spirit  of  divination,  following  Paul  and  Silas,  and  crying, 
These  are  the  servants  of  the  Most  High  God,  dovkoc.  It  was 
a  pagan,  heathen  city,  where  this  transaction  took  place ;  and 
this  damsel  is  said  to  have  brought  much  gain  to  her  masters, 
who  were  ignorant  idolaters,  practicing  both  slavery  and  div- 
ination, as  well  as  idolatry,  for  gain.  She  was  doubtless  a 
miserable  slave,  held  in  common  by  them,  and  exhibited  for 
the  gain  of  such  a  diabolical  development.  In  exorcising  her 
of  the  demoniac  possession,  Paul  reduced  her  price,  so  that, 
comparatively,  she  was  worth  nothing  to  -her  masters,  who 
drew  Paul  and  Silas  unto  the  market  place,  with  the  accusa- 
tion of  being  troublers  of  the  city.  As  in  the  uproar  against 
Paul  at  Ephesus,  the  trade  was  troubled,  and  no  crime  could 
be  greater  than  a  reduction  in  the  price  of  this  stock,  or  the 
shaking  of  its  permanence  and  security  in  the  service  of  Satan. 
JOHN  BROWN  entering  into  the  city  could  not  have  produced 
greater  terror  and  wrath  than  Paul  and  Silas,  delivering  this 
poor  slave  from  the  thraldom  of  Satan,  and  restoring  her  to 
her  senses. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV. 


EYIDZNCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLES  TO  THE  ROMANS  AND  CORINTHIANS — USAGE  OF  WORDS 
nf  THESE  EPISTLES — MORAL  ARGUMENT  FROM  BOTH. 


i.,  1.  Paul,  a  servant  of  Christ,  douAof.  Compare 
2  Cor.  iv.,  5  -r  I  Cor.  vii.,  22 ;  Gal.  i.,  10  ;  Phil,  i.,  1 ;  Col.  i.,  7  ;  iv., 
7 ;  1  Thess.  iii.,  2 ;  1  Tit.  i.,  1 ;  Phil.  i. ;  James  i.,  1 ;  2  Peter  i.,  1 ; 
Jude  i. ;  Rev.  i.,  1.  The  Lord  Jesus  not  being  a  slaveholder,  and 
having  declared  the  sense  in  which  his  apostles,  ministers  and 
disciples  are  his  servants,  that  is,  his  freemen,  serving  him 
from  the  heart,  choosing  him,  and  cleaving  to  him,  by  divine 
grace,  willingly,  as  their  Lord  and  Master,  the  word  dovXot 
applied  to  them,  or  6ovko$  to  any  one  of  them,  can  not  prove 
that  they  were  slaves,  but  proves  only  that  this  word  was  in- 
controvertibly  in  use  to  designate  free  persons,  as,  indeed,  the 
instances  of  its  usage  abundantly  demonstrate.  God  would 
never  have  chosen,  to  signify  the  exalted,  holy,  voluntary, 
loving  service  and  adoration  of  a  free  heart  toward  the  Sav- 
iour, a  word  that  meant  the  chattelism  of  beasts,  the  compul- 
sory service  of  a  slave. 

Rom.  vi.,  16-22.  "To  whom  ye  yield  yourselves  servants  to 
obey,  (dovkov<;  and  dovkoi  ei$  VTTOKO^V,)  his  servants  ye  are,  to 
whom  ye  obey,  (JovAot,  whether  of  sin  unto  death,  or  of  obe- 
dience unto  righteousness."  This  is  an  exceedingly  important 
passage,  even  to  the  end.  Several  things  are  to  be  consid- 
ered :  1.  The  service  to  which  this  word  Jov/lof  and  the  word 
vTTdKotjv  are  applied,  is  voluntary,  of  free  choice,  whether  the 
service  is  that  of  Satan  or  of  God.  Ye  yield  yourselves  ser- 
vants. 


USAGE    IN   ROMANS.  385 

2.  There  is  the  privilege  with  the  ability  of  changing  both 
the  service  and  the  master  at  pleasure,  and  entering  into  a 
new  engagement,  freely,  voluntarily. 

3.  When  this  change  is  made,  it  is  called  becoming  the  ser- 
vants of  righteousness,  or,  as  in  verse  19,  yielding  your  mem- 
bers as  servants  to  righteousness,  a  voluntary  act. 

4.  The  servants  of  sin  are  called  free  from  righteousness, 
and  the  servants  of  God  are  called  free  from  sin,  showing  the 
service,  either  side,  a  voluntary  service. 

5.  The  word  for  obedience  and  service  thus  rendered  is  in 
verses  16  and  17  vTranovu,  and  in  verses  18  and  22  dovXeva). 
Here,  then,  is  another  case  of  the  verb  (JouAevw  being  applied 
to  the  service  of  a  freeman,  as  well  as  the  noun  dovhog  to  the 
quality  and    state  of  a  freeman.     Compare  Luke  xv.,  29, 
where  the  son  says  to  his  father,  These  many  years  do  I  serve 
thee,  dovkevu,  the  service  of  a  freeman ;  and  Luke  xvi.,  13  ; 
No  servant  can  serve,  dovkev eiv,  two  masters ;  ye  can  not 
serve,  dovheveiv,  God  and  Mammon.     Also  note  in  this  con- 
nection the  fact  of  dovkoi  and  ptoOioi  being  applied  to  the  ser- 
vants of  the  same  household,  as  equivalent  terms.     The  proofs 
of  this  usage,  as  taken  from  the  Septuagint,  and  intimating  the 

•  same  views  in  regard  to  slavery  in  the  New  Testament  as  in 
the  Old,  are  multiplied. 

6.  The  ioages,  finally,  are  mentioned.     The  service  is  a  ser- 
vice on  wages,  which  is  the  service  of  a  free,  hired  servant, 
and  not  a  slave.    The  wages  of  sin  is  death  ;  the  service  vol- 
untary ;  the  wages  earned  and  paid.     Aov/lof,  dovkevu,  and 
d^uvia  (wages)  are  here  applied  to  one  and  the  same  system 
of  voluntary,  paid  labor.      Compare   1    Cor.  xix.,   19,  For 
though  I  be  free  from  all  men,  yet  have  I  made  myself  ser- 
vant unto  all  that  I  might  gain  the  more ;  edovXuaa,  made 
myself  a  servant,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  ikevOepog,  a  free 
man.      Compare  also  Rom.  vii.,  6,  we  are  set  free  from  the 
law,  that  we  should  serve,  (dov^eveiv,)  in  newness  of  spirit. 
There  can  be  no  question,  therefore,  that  the  words 

17 


386 


USAGE   IK    COEINTHIANS. 


and  dovXeveiv  are  both  used  of  a  free  service,  the  voluntary 
service  of  a  freeman. 

Rom.  xiv.,  14.  Who  art  thou,  that  judgest  another  man's 
servanf?  oiKer^v.  To  his  own  master  he  standeth  or  falleth. 
It  is  the  servant  of  God  that  is  here  spoken  of,  and  the  ser- 
vice a  free  service. 

Rom.  xvi.,  1.    Phebe,  a  servant  of  the  church,  didnovov* 

EVIDENCE   FBOM   FIKST   CORINTHIANS. 

1  Cor.  iv.,  1,  2  ;  ministers  of  Christ  and  stewards,  vTr^pErag 
and  olKovopovs.  It  is  required  in  stewards  that  a  man  be 
found  faithful,  olnovopoi.  Compare  Luke  xii.,  42,  43,  that 
faithful  and  wise  steward,  OLKOVO^IO^.  Blessed  is  that  servant, 
(JovAof.  The  argument  here,  from  the  use  of  the  words,  is 
plain  and  powerful.  The  steward  was  a  freeman,  not  a  slave 
(compare  Luke  xvi.,  1),  and  the  word  6ovko$  is  used  as  synony- 
mous with  oiKovd/itof,  of  the  same  meaning,  applied  to  the 


vants  (duabus  ancittis,  qua  ministrce 
dicebantur,  the  two  maid  servants,  who 
were  called  deaconesses),  "I  can  not 
easily  believe  that  deaconesses  in 
Christian  churches  were  slaves.  Nor 
do  I  think  it  very  likely  that  they 
should  be  domestic  or  hired  servants. 
We  now  all  know  what  is  meant  by 
a  deaconess,  in  Christian  writings. 
But  I  suspect  that  Pliny  was  misled 
by  the  ambiguity  of  the  Greek  word 
diaKovof,  which  is  sometimes  used  for 
slaves,  or  such  as  performed  the  low- 
est services  usually  appropriated  to 
slaves.  I  say  I  am  apt  to  think  that 
Pliny  was  not  sufficiently  aware  of 
the  different  meanings  of  the  word 
dianovoc,  deacon,  in  common  use,  and 
in  the  ecclesiastical  sense.  Phebe, 
our  sister,  a  servant  of  the  church. 
It  does  not  follow  that  she  was  either 
a  slave  or  a  hired  servant  to  any  one 
member  of  it."  V.  vii.,  pp.  45,  22. 


*  Stuart  on  Rom.  xii.,  7,  and  xvi, 
1.  On  the  general  Greek  usage  in  Ro- 
mans and  the  whole  N.  T.  see  THOLUCK 
on  this  epistle,  ch.  i.  vs.  1,  17  ;  ch.  ii. 
v.  13;  iii.  vs.  4,  19;  vi.  vs.  16-19. 
"  The  pious  Jews  loved  to  use  Bible, 
phrases  in  speaking  of  the  things  of 
common  life."  "  The  Jews  in  gen- 
eral, and  Paul  among  the  rest,  were 
fond  of  speaking  in  the  language  of 
the  Old  Testament."  Ch.  ix.  vs.  3, 
24,  etc;  ch.  xi.  12;  ch.  xii.  7. 

See  also  HUG'S  Introd.  to  the  New 
Testament,  pp.  13,  15.  26,  339,  361, 
541,  etc.,  and  Stuart's  Notes,  675. 

Also  DR.  ROBINSON'S  admirable  ar- 
ticle on  the  Philology  and  Lexicog- 
raphy of  the  New  Testament,  Bib. 
Rep.,  vol.  iv.,  pp.  154-182. 

Also,  on  dianovor,  see  LARDNER,  v. 
7,  p.  45.  Lardner  quotes  the  testi- 
mony of  Pliny,  and  remarks,  concern- 
ing his  torture  of  the  two  maid  ser- 


FBEEMEN,  NOT   SLAVES.  387 

same  free  person.  TnrjpKTat,  olKovofioi  and  dovkot  are  applied 
indiscriminately  to  signify  the  servants  of  Christ,  and  6iaicovo$ 
often  in  the  same  way.  (See  Robinson  on  the  words.) 

Here  it  is  proper  to  note  the  forced  interpretation  of  bonds- 
men applied  by  some,  as  for  example,  Conybeare  and  IToicson^ 
as  the  designation  in  English  of  the  service,  office  and  em- 
ployment of  the  apostles  and  preachers  of  the  gospel.  They 
have  taken  the  bad  and  lowest  signification  of  the  terms, 
from  Pagan  usage,  in  regard  to  slaves,  and  applied  that  slav- 
ish signification,  to  the  highest,  freest, 'most  honorable  and 
voluntary  commission  and  work  of  Christ's  servants  among 
mortals !  They  have  gone  so  far  as  to  render  1  Cor.  vii.,  23, 
"  Christ's  slave,  for  he  has  paid  a  price  for  you  all."*  And 
they  have  translated  Paul's  injunction  to  use  freedom,  thus  : 
"  Nay,  though  thou  have  power  to  gain  thy  freedom,  seek 
rather  to  remain  content ;"  at  the  same  time  acknowledging 
that  "  the  Greek  might  be  so  rendered  as  to  give  directly  op- 
posite precepts."  Whence  then  this  preference  for  slavery, 
and  this  dreadful  attempt  to  foist  it  in,  and  fasten  it  upon,  the 
blessed  words  and  doctrine  of  divine  inspiration  ? 

1  Cor.  vii.,  21-23.  "  Art  thou  called  being  a  servant?  dovhog. 
Care  not  for  it ;  but  if  thou  mayest  be  made  free,  use  it 
rather.  For  he  that  is  called  in  the  Lord  being  a  servant, 
dovAof,  is  the  Lord's  freeman  ;  likewise  also,  he  that  is  called, 
being  free,  is  Christ's  servant,  dovkog.  Ye  are  bought  (re- 
deemed, riyopdadrjre,)  with  a  price ;  be  not  ye  the  ser- 
vants, dovkoi,  of  men  ?"  The  argument  here  is  the  same  as 
that  in  regard  to  a  wife  who  is  called,  but  is  the  wife  of  an 
unbelieving  husband.  If  he  be  pleased  to  dwell  with  her,  let 
her  not  leave  him,  for  she  may  be  the  means  of  saving  him. 
But  if  he  depart,  she  is  not  under  bondage,  she  is  free  from 
him,  and  from  all  obligation  to  him.  So  if  a  servant  is  called, 
being  a  servant,  he  is  not  to  be  troubled  by  that  condition  of 

*  CONYBEAHE  and  HOWSON,  Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul,  voL  L,  pp.  39,  159, 
436,  etc. 


388  FREE,  BECAUSE  REDEEMED. 

bondage,  as  if  it  were  obligatory  upon  him,  for  if  he  may  be 
made  free,  if  he  can  be  made  free,  or  become  free  (el  not 
6vvaaat  ihevdepog  yeveaOai),  he  is  at  liberty  to  avail  himself 
of  that,  he  is  commanded  to  become  free,  rather  than  remain 
a  slave.  Several  things  are  to  be  considered. 

1.  It  is  not  merely  a  permission,  but  a  command,    Use  it 
rather. 

2.  The  reason,  the  ground,  of  this  command  is,  that  the 
slave,  when  converted,  is  the  Lord's  freeman  ;  but  if  he  uses 
the  privilege  of  his  freedom  from  men,  be  is  still  Christ's  ser- 
vant. 

3.  lie  is  redeemed  by  Christ,  and  must  not  be  the  slave  of 
men. 

4.  If  the  state  of  freedom  is  his  privilege  and  duty,  then, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  follows  incontrovertibly  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  master  to  yield  to  him  that  privilege,  to  let 
him  go  free.     If,  as  a  Christian,  he  is  free,  and  is  commanded 
to  use  his  freedom  rather  than  remain  in  bondage,  then  much 
more  it  is  the  duty  of  his  master,  as  a  Christian,  not  to  re- 
strain him   of  that  freedom,  not  to  prevent  him  from  that 
duty,  not  to  deny  him  that  privilege.     If  the  state  of  freedom 
is  so  much  better  for  the  servant,  or  slave,  that  he  is  bound 
to  use  it,  if  he  can  become  free,  then  by  the  same  obligation 
his  master  is  bound  to  give  it  to  him,  as  justice  and  equality, 
as  his  due,  bound  to  do  to  him  as  he  would  have  him  do  to 
himself.     This  acknowledgement,  or  gift  of  freedom,  is  the 
first  thing  considered  in  the  obligation  of  masters  giving  to 
their  servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal.      The  first  thing, 
and  without  which  nothing  can  bo  just  and  equal,  is  to  treat 
them  as  free,  to  yield  to  them  their  freedom,  and  to  deal  with 
them  as  free. 

5.  It  is  to  be  marked  that  while  a  general  command  is 
issued  to  converted  persons  to  remain  in  the  same  calling  in 
which  they  were  found  when   called  to  the  knowledge  of 
Christ,  one  exception  is  made,  and  only  one  is  mentioned, 


DUTY   TO   BE   FREE.  389 

that  of  slavery.  Out  of  that  calling  a  man  is  to  hasten  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  as  being  the  Lord's  freeman ;  and  for 
plain  reasons,  not  only  of  natural  and  Christian  right,  but 
because  the  state  of  slavery  is  so  infinitely  disastrous  and 
degrading  to  the  moral  being,  so  unfavorable  to  piety,  so  in- 
evitably interfering  with  a  man's  duty  to  God.  That  a  man 
may  hope  to  keep  his  Saviour's  commandments,  and  grow  in 
grace,  he  must,  as  quick  as  possible,  get  out  of  the  state  of 
slavery.  If  thou  canst  be  made  free,  use  it  rather.  Deliver 
me  from  the  oppression  of  man  ;  so  will  I  keep  thy  precepts. 
Deliver  me,  that  I  may  keep  them.* 

1  Cor.  xii.,  13.  For  by  one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into 
one  body,  whether  Jews  or  Gentiles,  whether  bond  or  free, 
Eire  tiovkoi  Eire  ekevOepoi.  And  whether  one  member  suffer, 
all  the  members  suffer  with  it,  verse  26.  On  this  ground  par- 
ticularly the  injunction  to  remember  them  that  are  in  bonds 
as  bound  with  them,  has  its  special  sacredness  of  obligation,  as 
a  duty  devolving  on  all  Christians,  and  which,  if  it  were  to 
the  letter  fulfilled,  would,  without  any  other  instrumentality, 
in  the  growth  of  the  Christian  church,  do  away  with  slavery 
from  the  whole  world.  But,  alas!  this  power  is  destroyed 
by  so  large  a  portion  of  the  so  called  Christian  church  taking 
the  side  of  the  oppressor,  and  instead  of  remembering  them 
that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them,  remembering  them 

*  See  OLSHAUSEN,  Comm.  on  1  Cor.,  WHITBY,  in  loc.     u  That  the  charity 

ch.  vii.,  vs.  20-24    Also  DODDRIDGE,  of  Christiana  was  employed  to  buy 

Exp.  on  verse  23.     Doddridge   ex-  their  brethren  out  of  slavery  we  learn 

pounds  the  verse,  "  Do  not  become  the  from  the  apologies  of  Justin  Martyr 

slaves  of  men,  since  so  many  evils  and  and  Tertullian,  who  tell  us  that  the 

dangers  and    snares   are  inseparable  offerings    at    the    sacrament    were, 

from  such  a  situation."    POOLE,  An-  amongst  others,    employed  for  that 

not.   gives  the   same   interpretation,  use."      See    also    NEANDER  on  the 

"  Make  use  of  thy  liberty  rather."    See  Church  in  Corinth.     History  of  the 

also  LIGHTFOOT  on  verse  23.      He-  Planting  of  Christianity,  263,  Bohn's 

brew  and  Talmudical   Exercitations  ed.       Also     NEANDER    on    Slavery, 

on  Corinthians.     "Works,  vol.  xii.  p.  Church   Hist  vol.  i.,  p.  372.      GRO- 

498.    See  also  PATRICK,  LOWTH  and  TICS,  Annot  on  1  Cor. 


390 


DUTY   TO   BE   FKEE. 


only  to  confirm  their  bonds  and  defend  the  system  of  iniquity 
as  a  righteous  institution  !* 

Compare  1  Peter  ii.,  16.  As  free,  and  not  using  your  lib- 
erty for  a  cloak  of  maliciousness,  but  as  the  servants,  dov/lof, 
of  God.  Compare  also  Gal.  v.,  13,  Ye  have  been  called  unto 
liberty ;  only  not  for  an  occasion  to  the  flesh,  but  by  love 
serve  one  another.  The  expression,  "  whether  bond  or  free," 
does  not  necessarily  refer  to  slavery,  but  may  mean  merely 
the  customary  servitude  of  a  free  Jewish  family,  as  well  as 
the  Pagan  relations  of  servitude. 


*  BLOOMFIELD  on  Rom.  vi.,  18. 
"  Obedience  to  God  is  properly  not  a 
slavery  but  a  service" 

OLSHAUSEN  on  1  Cor.  vii.,  20-24. 
"  The  relation  of  slavery  is  certainly 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel, 
which  makes  men  free ;  and  Paul 
advises  also  the  converted  slaves  to 
seek  freedom  if  they  can  obtain  it 
(of  course  in  a  lawful  and  proper 
manner),  and  the  free  men  in  no 
manner  to  trifle  away  their  freedom. 
At  the  same  time,  if  this  is  not  pos- 
sible, he  exhorts  them  not  to  vex 
themselves  about  it,  since  the  freeman 
is  also  the  servant  of  Christ.  If  thou 
canst  also  obtain  bodily  besides  spirit- 
ual freedom,  do  it  rather,  for  the  slave 


called  in  the  Lord  is  by  the  Lord 
made  free  from  all  outward  power, 
therefore  it  is  befitting  also  that  he 
should  be  quite  free." 

AVuiTBY  on  1  Cor.  vii.,  23.  "  Have 
ye  been  bought  with  a  price  ?  Are 
ye  bought  out  of  servitude  by  the 
charity  of  Christians?  Return  not 
again  to  the  service  of  unbelievers." 

CALVIN,  Ad.  Cor.  1,  cap.  vii.  ; 
ADAM  CLARKE,  1  Cor.  vii.  "  Do  not 
become  slaves  of  men.  I  here  reg- 
ister my  testimony  against  the  un- 
principled, inhuman,  anti-Christian, 
and  diabolical  slave  trade,  with  all  its 
authors,  promoters,  abettors,  and  sac- 
rilegious gains,  as  well  as  against  the 
great  devil,  the  father  of  it  and  them." 


CHAPTER    XXXV  . 

EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS. — POWEB  OP  THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT. 

GAL.  iii.,  28.  There  is  neither  bond  nor  free ;  all  one  in 
Christ  Jesus;  dovXog,  ihevdepog,  not  meaning,  necessarily, 
slave  nor  free,  but  if  so,  then  an  argument  against  slavery. 
These  distinctions  were  to  be  done  away  in  the  church.  Once 
obliterated  and  abolished  there,  their  abolition  would  speedily 
follow  in  the  world,  and  slavery  would  cease  everywhere, 
would  no  longer  be  possible  any  where. 

Gal.  iv.,  7.  Thou  art  no  more  a  servant,  tfovAof,  but  a  son. 
In  connection  with  this,  take  the  first  verse  of  the  same  chapter, 
"  The  heir,  as  long  as  he  is  a  child,  differeth  nothing  from  a  ser- 
vant, dov/lof ,  though  he  be  lord  of  all."  It  is  evident  that  the 
apostle  does  not  mean  by  dov^iog  a  slave.  He  would  not  say 
that  the  heir  differs  nothing  from  a  slave ;  he  would  not  say 
of  Christ,  the  Lord  of  all,  that  he  differs  nothing  from  a  slave. 
The  meaning  of  dovkog  here  is  of  subjection  to  law,  and  to 
tutors  and  governors,  till  the  time  of  assuming  the  heirship  ; 
even  as  a  Hebrew  servant,  or  (Joft/lof,  by  the  law,  though  not 
a  slave,  was  under  subjection  to  his  master,  till  the  appointed 
period  of  such  service  and  subjection  was  fulfilled.  Just  so 
the  Son  of  God  was  made  under  the  law,  to  redeem  them 
that  were  under  the  law,  not  under  slavery,  that  we  might 
receive  the  adoption  of  sons. 

The  condition  of  slavery  is  not  here  referred  to,  neither  in 
the  whole  argument  that  follows,  but  simply  of  bondage  to 
the  observances  of  the  ceremonial  law,  and  to  the  law  as  a 
condition  of  life  contrary  to  the  law  of  faith,  "  Tell  me," 


392  MAID   SERVANT   AND   MISTRESS. 

says  the  apostle,  "  ye  that  de  sire  to  be  under  the  law"  (it 
was  a  voluntary  thing),  "  do  ye  not  hear  the  law  ?"  He  then 
illustrates  the  allegory  of  Abraham's  fwo  sons,  the  one  by  a 
maid  servant,  TraidLour],  improperly  rendered  bond-woman, 
since  that  is  not  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  term,  which  is 
translated  by  the  Septuagint,  naidianTj,  and  by  the  English 
translators,  in  the  first  instance,  simply  maid  (Hagar,  Sarah's 
maid),  though  afterwards  they  translated  the  very  same  word 
bond-woman,  but  without  any  ground  in  the  original  for 
such  change.  The  mistress  would  be  called  eAevdeoa,  a  free 
woman,  in  distinction  from  the  maid  servant,  not  because  the 
maid  servant  was  a  slave,  but,  by -the  terms  of  Hebrew  do- 
mestic service,  was  under  subjection  to  her  mistress  during 
the  time  of  her  contracted  service.  The  mistress  of  a  He- 
brew household  would  be  called  ekevdepa  in  distinction  from 
all  her  Hebrew  servants,  who  would  each  be  called. Traidioierj, 
but  not  slave ;  and  they  also  would  be  each  ekevOepa,  a  free 
woman,  according  to  the  law,  when  the  legal  term  of  service 
had  expired.  Not  one  thing  more  than  this  distinction  is  here 
brought  into  view,  as  is  manifest  from  the  opening  of  the 
chapter,  where  the  son  and  heir  is  represented  under  the  ap- 
pointed condition  of  a  servant,  until  the  fullness  of  time  for 
release  from  it. 

This  is  further  illustrated  and  proved  by  the  contrast,  under 
the  flesh,  and  under  the  promise.  It  will  not  be  contended 
that  Ishrnael  was  a  slave ;  yet,  if  it  is  slavery  and  slave  law 
that  is  here  in  view,  he  certainly  was,  if  Hagar  was  a  slave. 
But  Hagar  was  simply  a  maid-servant,  and  Ishmael,  being  her 
son,  was  not  entitled  to  the  promise,  which  belonged  to  Abra- 
ham's seed  by  Sarah,  his  wife.  Paul  compares  the  condition 
of  Hagar  and  her  seed  with  that  of  the  children  of  the  flesh, 
who  are  not  the  children  of  God,  unless  they  become  such  by 
faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  but  are  under  subjection  to  the  law, 
not  as  slaves,  but  by  a  just  and  righteous  subjection.  Mount 
Sinai,  as  a  personification  of  the  law,  "  gendereth  to  bondage," 


NOT  SLAVE  AND   MISTRESS.  393 

and  Hagar  answers  to  Jerusalem  and  the  Jews,  who  are  all  in 
this  bondage  under  the  law,  until  by  faith  in  Jesus  they  are 
redeemed  from  under  the  law,  and  receive  the  adoption  of 
sons.  "  For  it  is  written  that  Abraham  had  two  sons,  the  one 
by  a  maid-servant,  the  other  by  a  free  woman.  But  he  who 
was  of  the  maid-servant  was  born  after  the  flesh ;  but  he  of 
the  free  woman  was  by  promise.  Which  things  are  an  alle- 
gory.— What  saith  the  Scripture?  Cast  out  the  maid-servant 
and  her  son  ;  for  the  son  of  the  maid-servant  shall  not  be  heir 
with  the  son  of  the  free  woman.  So  then,  brethren,  we  are 
not  children  of  the  maid-servant,  but  of  the  free.  Stand  fast, 
therefore,  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Chrst  hath  made  us  free, 
and  be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage.  Ye 
have  been  called  into  liberty  ;  only  use  not  liberty  for  an  oc- 
casion to  the  flesh,  but  by  love  serve  one  another,  dovkevere. 
If  ye  be  led  by  the  Spirit,  ye  are  not  under  the  law."  Note 
here  the  word  dovXevere  employed  to  signify  the  free  voluntary 
service  of  love,  a  service  of  freedom,  not  the  service  of  slavery. 

Now  the  arbitrary  manner  in  which  the  translators  of  the 
Old  Testament  have  put  a  difference  between  Hagar  in  the 
16th  and  Hagar  in  the  21st  chapters  of  Genesis,  may  be  seen 
at  a  glance.  No  reason  can  be  given  for  translating  the  Pie- 
brew  words  firs*  or  rn:N  by  the  English  word  maid  in  one 
chapter  and  bond-woman  in  another,  especially  considering  that 
the  Septuagint  translation  -rratdiaKr]  is  the  same  in  both  cases, 
and  the  Hebrew  words  are  synonymous.  (See  1  Sam.  xxv., 
41.)  In  the  16th  chapter  (1-3)  we  read  as  follows  :  Sarai  had 
an  handmaid.  Go  into  my  maid  (Sept.  -rraidtoicrj) ;  and  Sarai 
took  Hagar,  her  maid,  and  gave  her  to  her  husband  Abra- 
ham to  be  his  wife.  Verse  5,  I  have  given  my  maid ;  verse 
6,  Behold  thy  maid /  verse  8,  the  angel  says,  Hagar,  Sarai's 
maid. 

In  the  21st  chapter  the  word  WCN,  maid,  is  rendered  bond- 
woman (Sept.  rraidiaKfj")  several  times.  No  reason  can  be  given 
for  such  a  rendering  in  English.  There  is  no  justification  for 


394  MORAL   ARGUMENT   AGAINST   SLAVERY. 

it,  either  in  the  Old  or  New  Testament.  "  So,  then,  breth- 
ren," concludes  the  apostle,  we  are  not  children  of  the  bond- 
woman (TT aid LO tirf)  but  of  the  free,  eXevdepa."  The  contrast  is 
not  between  slavery  (which  is  the  unrighteous  bondage  of 
chattelism)  and  freedom,  but  between  the  righteous  obliga- 
tions of  the  law,  impossible  to  be  met  by  nature,  and  the  free- 
dom of  the  gospel,  the  liberty  in  Christ  by  divine  grace. 
Stand  fast,  therefore,  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath 
made  us  free,  and  be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of 
bondage.  Ye  have  been  called  unto  liberty,  the  liberty  of 
love. 

Now  the  whole  moral  argument  here  is  overwhelming 
against  slavery.  "  Christianity,"  remarks  Neander,*  "  ef 
fected  a  change  in  the  conditions  of  men,  from  which  a  disso- 
lution of  this  whole  relation  was  sure  eventually  to  take  place. 
This  effect  Christianity  produced,  first  of  all  by  the  facts  to 
which  it  was  a  witness,  and  next  by  the  ideas  which  by  means 
of  these  facts  it  set  in  circulation.  The  original  unity  of  the 
human  race  was  restored  in  Christ.  Servants  and  masters,  if 
they  had  become  believers,  were  brought  together  under  the 
same  bond  of  a  heavenly  union,  destined  for  immortality.  They 
became  brethren  in  Christ,  in  whom  there  is  neither  bond  nor 
free,  members  of  one  body,  baptized  into  one  Spirit,  heirs  of 
the  same  heavenly  inheritance.  Masters  saw  in  their  servants 
no  longer  their  slaves,  but  their  beloved  brethren.  Christi- 
anity could  not  fail  to  give  birth  to  the  wish  that  every  man 
might  be  placed  in  such  a  situation  as  would  least  hinder  the 
free  and  independent  use  of  his  intellect  and  moral  powers, 
according  to  the  will  of  God.  Accordingly  the  apostle  St. 
Paul,  speaking  to  the  servant,  says  (1  Cor.  vii.,  21),  "  If  thou 
inayst  be  made  free,  use  it  rather." 

In  the  persecution  under  Diocletian,  it  appears  that  in  some 
instances  free-born  Christians  were  made  slaves,  and  put  to 
the  lowest  and  most  degrading  of  servile  employments.     A 
*  NEANDER'S  Church  History,  vol.  L,  p.  372,  Bohn's  Ed. 


EESCEIPTS    OF   JUSTICE.  395 

part  of  the  persecuting  edict  ran  thus :  "  In  judicial  proceed- 
ings the  torture  may  be  used  against  Christians,  whatsoever 
their  rank  may  be ;  those  of  the  lower  rank  to  be  divested  of 
their  rights  as  citizens  and  freemen ;  and  slaves,  so  long  as 
they  shall  remain  Christians,  are  to  be  incapable  of  receiving 
their  freedom."*  This  last  item  would  intimate  that  Christians 
had  been  accustomed  to  give  freedom  to  the  enslaved.  We 
here  see  a  Pagan  emperor  divesting  men  of  their  rights  as 
citizens  and  freemen  because  of  their  religion.  In  our  own  Chris- 
tian country  we  see  the  government  and  the  Chief  Justice  of  our 
national  tribunal  administering  the  same  kind  of  treatment  to 
Christian  men  because  of  their  color.  Under  Diocletian  the 
rescript  of  justice  ran  thus  :  Christians  have  no  rights  that  the 
Romans  are  bound  to  respect.  Under  the  government  of  the 
United  States  it  runs  thus :  Black  men  have  no  rights  that 
white  men  are  bound  to  respect.  Which  is  most  infamous  and 
wicked,  the  ignorant  intolerance  of  the  old  Pagans  or  the  en- 
lightened inhumanity  and  barbarism  of  the  modern  Chris- 
tians ? 

Some  of  the  commentators  seem  so  enamored  of  the  lan- 
guage of  slavery  that  they  degrade  the  illustrations  of  the 
apostles  by  it.  Conybeare  and  ITowson  translate  mudaywyof, 
in  Gal.  iii.,  24,  as  the  slave  who  leads  the  child  to  the  house  of 
the  schoolmaster,  and  they  suppose  Paul  to  have  been  under 
such  a  slave. 

"  His  education  was  conducted  at  home  rather  than  at 
school ;  for,  though  Tarsus  was  celebrated  for  its  learning,  the 
Hebrew  boy  would  not  lightly  be  exposed  to  the  influence  of 
Gentile  teaching,  or,  if  he  went  to  a  school,  it  was  not  a  Greek 
school,  but  rather  to  some  room  connected  with  the  syna- 
gogu%  where  a  noisy  class  of  Jewish  children  received  the 
rudiments  of  instruction,  seated  on  the  ground  with  their 
teacher,  after  the  manner  of  Mohammedan  children  in  the 
east,  who  may  be  seen  or  heard  at  their  lessons  near  the 
*  NEA^DEK,  Church  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  205. 


396  THE  LAW    OUR   SCHOOLMASTER. 

mosque.  At  such  a  school,  it  may  be,  he  learned  to  read  and  to 
write,  going  and  returning  under  the  care  of  some  attendant, 
according  to  that  custom,  which  he  afterward  used  as  an  illus- 
tration in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  (and  perhaps  he  remem- 
bered his  own  early  days  when  he  wrote  the  passage)  when 
he  spoke  of  the  law  as  the  slave  who  conducts  us  to  the 
school  of  Christ."* 

There  is  no  ground  for  such  a  translation.  On  the  contrary, 
it  violates  both  what  we  know  of  Hebrew  domestic  manners, 
there  being  no  such  thing  in  any  Jewish  family  as  such  a  slave, 
and  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of  interpretation  in  regard  to  trop- 
ical language,  such  as  confessedly  that  of  the  apostle  here  is. 
The  pedagogue  in  this  passage,  and  1  Cor.  iv.,  15,  is  certainly 
(see  Robinson  and  Bloomfield  on  the  word)  a  tutor,  or  teacher, 
and  tropically  the  law  is  so  called.  To  translate  the  word  as 
slave,  and  suppose  that  Paul's  childhood  was  passed  under  the 
care  of  such  a  slave,  to  and  fro  from  the  synagogue,  would  be 
something  like  supposing  from  the  mention  of  the  lion  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  that  the  families  of  that  tribe  kept  such  a  lion, 
and  were  accustomed  to  regard  it  with  particular  veneration, 
and  thence  applied  the  title  to  their  expected  Messiah. 

Speaking  of  the  relation  of  Christian ty  to  government,  Ne- 
ander  remarks  that  "  Christianity  (in  the  time  of  Paul)  taught 
men  to  render  an  obedience  that  had  its  root  in  the  love  of 
God,  and  pointed  ultimately  to  HIM:  ;  therefore  a  free  obedi- 
ence, as  far  removed  from  a  slavish  fear  of  man  on  one  hand, 
as  from  a  lawless  self-will  on  the  other.  The  same  spirit  of 
Christianity  which  taught  men  to  obey  for  God's  sake,  taught 
also  that  God  should  be  obeyed  rather  than  man,  and  that 
every  consideration,  even  of  property  and  life  itself,  should  be 
disregarded  in  all  cases  where  human  power  demanded  an 
obedience  contrary  to  the  laws  and  ordinances  of  God.  In 
such  cases  the  Christians  displayed  that  true  spirit  of  freedom 
against  which  despotic  power  could  avail  nothing."! 

*  CONYBEARE,  Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul,  vol.  i.,  54. 

|  NEANDEB,  General  Hist,  of  tho  Christian  Religion  and  Church,  vol.,  i.p.  359. 


MABKS   OP  THE  LOED  JESUS.  397 

Conybeare  and  Howson  have  also  rendered  Gal.  vi.,  17,  "I 
bear  in  my  body  the  scars  which  mark  my  bondage  to  the 
Lord  Jesus."  And  they  attempt  to  justify  this  translation  by 
saying  that  arijfiara  signifies  literally  the  scars  of  the  wounds 
made  upon  the  body  of  a  slave  by  the  branding-iron,  by  which 
he  was  marked  as  belonging  to  his  master.*  They  think  the 
scars  of  the  wounds  suffered  for  Christ's  sake  are  to  be  ren- 
dered as  such  branding-marks  of  slavery.  How  strange  that 
so  forced  and  degrading  an  illustration  should  be  chosen  when 
another,  so  much  more  natural,  and  at  the  same  time  hon- 
orable, was  near  at  hand.  We  are  informed  in  Lucianf  that 
the  Thracians  and  others  counted  these  arijiiara  as  the  badges 
of  honor  among  freemen.  Archbishop  POTTER  quotes  Theo- 
doret  as  of  opinion  that  the  Jews  forbade  the  branding  of 
themselves  with  stigmata,  because  the  idolaters  by  that  certi- 
fication used  to  consecrate  themselves  to  their  false  deities.  J 
The  <myjuara,  referred  to  by  the  apostle,  can  not,  therefore, 
be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  slavery,  or  its  imitation,  but  of  a 
voluntary  and  honorable  religious  consecration.  Such  marks 
Paul  bore  about  with  him,  the  marks  of  his  consecration  to 
the  service  of  his  Saviour,  but  not  the  marks  of  his  having 
been  branded  as  Christ's  bond-slave.  It  is  also  important  to 
be  noted  that  the  anyfj-ara  were  branded  not  upon  slaves,  as 
slaves,  but  as  marks  of  punishment  and  disgrace  upon  thieves 
and  fugitives.^  But  Paul  was  never  a  fugitive  from  Christ's 
service. 

*  Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul,  vol.  il,  \  POTTER,  Grecian  Antiquities,  vol. 

p.  152.  ii.,  75,  76. 

f  LUCIAN,  Syrian  Goddess,  "Works,  §  See  BLAIR'S  Inquiry,  48, 110  ;  also 

vol.  iv.  BECKER,  Gallus,  231,  Slave  Family. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI  . 

EVIDENCE  FBOM  THE   EPISTLE  TO  TUB  EPIIESIANS.— INSTRUCTIONS  TO  HUSBANDS  AND 
WIVES,  PARENTS  AND  CHILDBEX. — ROMAN  LAWS  IN  KEGAED  TO  TIIESE  RELATIONS. 

EPHESIANS  iv.,  28.  '  "Let  him  that  stole,  steal  no  more; 
but  rather  let  him  labor,  working  with  his  hands  the  thing 
that  is  good,  that  he  may  have  to  give  to  him  that  need- 
eth."  It  would  be  singular,  if  while  such  an  injunction  as  this 
were  supposed  to  apply  to  such  a  thing  as  a  man's  purse  or 
pocket  handkerchief,  it  should  have  no  authority  or  obligation 
in  regard  to  .himself,  or  his  own  person  ;  that  is,  if  for  a  man 
to  take  another's  purse  should  be  considered  thieving,  while 
to  take  the  man  himself  and  sell  him,  should  be  an  honest 
transaction,  nay,  a  fulfillment  of  the  law  of  charity !  When 
the  apostle  says,  "  Let  him  that  stole  steal  no  more,"  men- 
stealers  as  well  as  money-stealers  would  be  included.  And 
let  men  labor  themselves  rather  than  steal  the  labor  of  others. 

Ephesians  v.,  22.  "  Wives,  submit  yourselves  unto  your 
own  husbands,  as  unto  the  Lord,"  etc.  This  passage,  as 
applied  to  human  society,  makes  slavery  and  Christianity  in- 
compatible. The  sacrament  of  marriage  does  not  belong  to 
slaves ;  if  servants  can  be  slaves,  they  must  cease  to  be  hus- 
bands and  wives ;  they  can  possess  none  of  the  privileges, 
enjoy  none  of  the  blessedness,  experience  nothing  of  the  in- 
violable love  and  sacredness  of  this  celestial  union,  nor  can 
they  assume  or  be  bound  by  its  obligations.  Human  law  for 
them  abrogates  or  nullifies  the  divine  law,  and  puts  them  out 
of  its  authority  and  protection.  It  is  the  judgment  of  slave 
law  "  that  slaves  have  no  marital  rights,"  can  not  contract 
marriage,  can  not,  therefore,  be  guilty  of  any  violation  of  that 


SLAVE   LAW   AGAINST   GOD'S   LAW.  399 

ordinance  by  any  promiscuousness  of  concubinage.  The  dia- 
bolical destruction  of  the  institution  of  marriage  by  American 
slavery,  the  defiance  and  violation  of  God's  law,  the  teaching 
and  enforcement  of  concubinage,  fornication,  adultery,  licen- 
tiousness, if  there  were  not  a  single  other  feature  to  condemn 
it  before  God  and  man,  would  be  enough,  of  itself,  to  brand 
it  as  sin,  and  only  sin,  continually;  demonstrating  the  system 
as  nothing  but  a  machinery  for  the  permanent  violation  of  the 
seventh  commandment,  as  well  as  the  eighth,  and  through 
them  of  every  commandment  of  the  decalogue. 

If  the  instructions  of  husbands  and  wives  belong  to  servants, 
then  servants  must  be  free,  and  slavery  is  condemned  by  the 
"Word  of  God,  as  not  an  ordinary  crime,  but  a  vast  fountain  of 
wickedness.  If  they  do  not  so  belong,  then  the  obligations 
and  privileges  of  the  decalogue  are  not  universal,  and  Chris- 
tianity is  demonstrated  not  to  be  from  God,  but  to  be  a  sys- 
tem of  gross  and  shameful  respect  to  persons,  making  that  to 
be  sin  in  one  class  which  is  righteousness  in  another,  and  tak- 
ing away  the  dearest  rights  of  one  class  to  make  them  the 
property  of  another.  A  monopoly  of  the  most  sacred  affec- 
tions, sentiments,  and  passions  of  life,  takeh  away  from  the 
social  existence  of  four  millions,  rendering  them,  by  such 
fraud,  inevitably  vicious  and  miserable,  making  the  state  of 
social  purity  and  happiness  for  them  impossible,  and  that  mo- 
nopoly given  to  three  hundred  thousand  owners  for  their 
profit,  would,  of  itself  alone,  if  such  an  infinite  monstrosity 
were  attempted  to  be  palmed  off  as  a  divine  revelation,  prove 
the  volume  containing  it  to  be  the  product  of  sin,  the  work 
of  the  father  of  lies  and  murderer  from  the  beginning.  To 
think  of  that  sacrament  of  wedded  love,  which  the  Lord  Jesus 
has  so  infinitely  exalted  and  magnified  by  comparing  it  with 
his  own  love  for  the  church,  being  degraded  into  a  stock- 
power,  at  the  command  of  three  hundred  thousand  merchants 
in  human  flesh,  for  the  breeding  of  slaves  as  property  ! 

Let  the  closing  verse  of  this  sacred  passage  be  read  and 


400  PARENTS   AND   CHILDREN. 

applied  to  such  a  system !  "  Nevertheless,  let  every  one  of 
you  in  particular  so  love  his  wife  even  as  himself;  and  the 
wife  see  that  she  reverence  her  husband."  The  impossibility 
of  such  an  obligation  and  such  a  blessedness  for  creatures  in 
the  condition  of  American  slaves,  under  bondage  to  owners  as 
their  property  for  their  sole  benefit,  is  but  one  among  the  ter- 
rible consequences  of  the  crime  of  slaveholding,  but  one  in- 
stance or  example  of  the  havoc  it  makes  with  the  holy  precepts 
of  the  Word  of  God.  Yet  theologians  at  the  North  split  hairs 
upon  it  on  the  question  whether  it  be  sinful  in  itself,  malum  in 
se,  while  theologians  at  the  South  accept  and  maintain  it  as 
the  righteousness  of  God,  and  the  most  perfect  state  of  human 
society,  with  the  maxim  partus  sequitur  ventrem  as  the  Urim 
and  Thummin  of  the  system  on  the  bosom  of  its  ministering 
priests. 

Ephesians  vi.,  1-4.  "  Children,  obey  your  parents  in  the 
Lord,  for  this  is  right.  Honor  thy  father  and  mother.  And  ye 
fathers,  provoke  not  your  children  to  wrath,  but  bring  them 
up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord."  These  sacred 
injunctions  no  more  belong  to  slaves,  as  property,  and  are  no 
more  possible  to  be  fulfilled  by  them  than  the  former.  In 
slavery  children  can  owe  no  obedience  to  their  parents,  can 
not  tell,  indeed,  in  many  cases,  who  their  parents  are,  neither 
can  parents  possess  any  authority,  or  right  of  affection,  or  of 
service,  or  of  instruction,  over  their  children,  they  being 
merely  and  solely  the  property  of  their  owners,  as  mere  mer- 
chandise, for  their  sole  benefit  and  pleasure.  The  effect  of 
this,  in  the  destruction  even  of  the  parental  instinct,  is  impress- 
ively demonstrated  by  Rev.  Dr.  Adams  in  his  work  on  the 
South  Side  of  Slavery  ;  as  also  to  such  an  extreme  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  filial  sentiment  from  the  child  to  the  father, 
making  it  absolutely  unintelligible,  demonstrating  the  impos- 
sibility even  of  the  relation  of  father  being  understood  by 
slave-children,  that  he  could  not  undertake  to  speak  to  a  class 
of  such  children  in  reference  to  the  words,  OUR  FATHER  who 


SLAVERY  NOT  TOLERATED.  401 

art  in  heaven,  with  any  hope  of  making  them  comprehend  the 
the  blessed  meaning  of  those  words !  It  would  scarcely  be 
possible  to  conceive  a  more  overwhelming  demonstration  of 
the  dreadful  nature  of  slavery  in  itself,  but  especially  as 
wrought,  concentrated,  and  established  in  a  system  by  law 
and  religion  in  our  own  country,  vaunted  as  the  most  perfect 
form  of  Christian  socialism,  and  the  most  effective  missionary 
institute  of  heaven  ! 

It  is  not  possible  that  Christianity  could  ever  tolerate  such 
a  system.  If  we  admitted  that  Christianity  tolerated  slavery 
in  order  to  subvert  it,  as  some  have  argued,  then  on  the  same 
grounds  we  must  admit  that  Christianity  tolerated  conjugal 
slavery,  and  filial  slavery,  as  well  as  servile  slavery,  for  under 
the  Roman  law,  which  prevailed  in  those  lands  wherein  Chris- 
tianity was  first  taught  to  the  Gentiles,  slavery  inhered  in  the 
relations  of  wife  and  son,  as  well  as  in  that  of  servant.  But  if 
the  precepts  of  Christ  could  not  be  interpreted  into  consist- 
ency with  a  Christian's  treating  his  wife  as  a  slave,  or  treating 
his  son  as  a  slave,  neither  can  they  be  interpreted  into  consist- 
ency with  a  man's  treating  his  Christian  brother  as  a  slave.* 

Under  the  Roman  laws,  "  in  his  father's  house  the  son  was 
a  mere  thing,  confounded  by  the  laws  with  the  moveables,  the 
cattle,  and  the  slaves,  whom  the  capricious  master  might 
alienate  or  destroy,  without  being  responsible  to  any  earthly 
tribunal.  At  the  call  of  indigence  or  avarice,  the  master  of  a 
family  could  dispose  of  his  children  or  his  slaves."  But  the 
condition  of  the  slave  was  far  more  advantageous  in  this  re- 
spect, Gibbon  adds,  because  the  slave  was  free  on  being  the 
first  time  manumitted  ;  but  the  son  might  be  sold  by  his  fa- 
ther a  second  and  a  third  time  into  slavery.  He  had  the 
power  of  life  and  death  over  him  ;  "  examples  of  such  bloody 
executions  were  sometimes  praised,  and  never  punished."f 


*  DR.  HAGUE,  Christianity  and  Statesmanship. 
f  GIBBON,  Decline  and  Fall,  chap.  xliv. 


402  SLAVEET  NOT  TOLEBATED. 

Under  the  same  laws  the  wife  was  equally  the  slave  of  the 
husband,  "  who  was  invested  with  the  plenitude  of  paternal 
power,  so  that  by  his  judgment  or  caprice  her  behavior  was 
approved,  or  censured,  or  chastised ;  he  exercised  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  life  and  death ;  and  it  was  allowed  that  in  cases  of 
adultery  or  drunkenness  the  sentence  might  be  properly  in- 
flicted." "  So  clearly  was  woman  defined  not  as  a  person,  but 
as  a  thing,  that  if  the  original  title  was  deficient  she  might  be 
claimed,  like  other  moveables,  by  the  use  and  possession  of 
an  entire  year."* 

Now  if  the  relation  of  slavery  is  sanctioned,  as  some  have 
argued,  by  the  instructions  in  the  gospel  to  masters  and  ser- 
vants, under  the  Roman  law,  so  is  the  power  and  right  of  the 
father  and  the  husband  over  the  life  and  liberty  of  the  son  and 
the  wife,  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  filial  and  marital  relation, 
sanctioned  by  the  instruction  to  fathers  and  husbands.  There 
is  no  condemnation  of  the  Roman  law  in  either  case  ;  no  in- 
junction forbidding  husbands  to  kill  or  sell  their  wives  or  their 
children.  Does  the  fact  of  the  relation  of  father  and  son,  hus- 
band and  wife,  being  recognized  in  the  New  Testament  sanc- 
tion or  sanctify  those  enormities,  or  make  the  son  and  the 
wife  slaves  ?  No  more  does  the  relation  of  master  and  ser- 
vant being  recognized  in  the  New  Testament  make  the  ser- 
vant a  slave,  or  sanction  or  permit  the  claim  of  the  master 
over  him  as  a  chattel,  as  his  property.  The  same  argument  of 
human  law  that  makes  the  servant  a  slave  makes  the  son  and 
the  wife  a  slave. 

"  Be  ye  not  the  servants  of  men,"  says  the  apostle  Paul. 
"  It  is  far  from  his  intention,"  says  Lightfoot  on  the  passage, 
;<  to  take  away  the  relation  that  is  between  masters  and  ser- 
vants."! But  the  injunctions  upon  masters  do  absolutely 
abolish  the  relation  that  is  between  masters  and  slaves, 

*  GIBBON,  ch.  44.  BLAIR,' Inquiry  mans.  Fuss,  Rom.  Ant,  §§  83,  84,  8G. 
into  the  State  of  Slavery  among  the  Ro-  f  LIGHTFOOT,  voL  xiL,  p.  498. 


SLAVERY   EXCLUDED   FEOM  THE   CHUKCH.  403 

making  it  impossible  for  a  Christian  to  hold  a  slave,  or 
to  treat  a  human  being  as  property.  The  true  primitive 
Christians,  acting  upon  Christ's  precepts,  must  have  carried 
them  into  a  complete  abolition  of  slavery  in  their  households, 
and  this  example  at  length  produced  its  effect  among  all  the 
races  under  the  Roman  empire.  Paul's  Epistle  to  Philemon, 
as  we  shall  see,  was  just  a  development  and  application  of 
these  principles. 

In  later  times  we  have  some  striking  testimonies  of  the 
same  principles.  Neander  quotes  the  Abbot  Isidore  of  Pelu- 
sium  writing  in  behalf  of  a  fugitive,  and  addressing  the  mas- 
ter thus  :  "  I  did  not  suppose  that  a  man  who  loves  Christ, 
who  knows  the  grace  which  has  made  all  men  free,  COULD 
STILL  HOLD  A  SLAVE  !"  Ho  quotes  also  from  "  the  venerable 
Monk  Nilus,"  citing  the  example  of  Job's  benevolent  and  right- 
eous conduct  to  his  servants,  and  demanding  compassion  for 
the  race  of  slaves,  "  whom  the  mastership  of  violence,  destroy- 
ing the  fellowship  of  nature,  had  converted  into  tools."  The 
essence  of  slavery  is  here  brought  to  view,  the  conversion  of 
an  immortal  being  into  a  chattel ;  a  mastership  of  violence, 
inconsistent  with  the  professions  of  Christianity.* 

Augustine  also  protested  against  treating  slaves  as  things. 

"  The  Christian,"  said  he,  "  dare  not  regard  a  slave  as  his 
property,  like  a  horse,  or  silver,  although  it  may  happen  that  a 
horse  fetches  a  higher  price  than  a  slave,  and  still  more  an  ar- 
ticle of  furniture  made  out  of  gold  or  silver."  It  is  related  ot 
Eligius,  Bishop  of  Noyon,  that  "  when  he  heard  that  vessels 
were  arrived  full  of  slaves  for  sale,  captives  of  Roman,  Gallic, 
British,  and  Moorish  descent,  but  particularly  Saxons,  Who 
were  driven  like  so  many  cattle,  he  hastened  to  the  spot,  and 
sometimes  ransomed  a  hundred. "f 

At  the  same  time  it  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  such  in- 

*  NEANDER,  General  History  of  tho  f  NEANDEU'S  Memorials  of  Christian 
Church,  vol.  iii.,  p.  356.  Life,  pp.  30G,  377. 


404  SLAVERY   OF   SERFDOM. 

stances  were  rare,  and  indicate  the  highest  Christian  con- 
sciousness above  the  corruption  of  the  age.  They  are  as 
light-houses  upon  rocks  amidst  the  sea,  and  they  shine  amidst 
many  abominations.  It  could  not  be  expected  that,  while  the 
corruptions  of  Christianity  were  deepening,  this  great  virtue 
of  the  rebuke,  resistance  and  excommunication  of  slavery 
would  be  maintained,  according  to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel. 
There  came  to  be,  in  various  parts  of  the  Roman  empire  and 
among  its  fragments,  a  race  of  serfs,  adscripti  glebce,  in  France, 
England  and  other  nations,  treated  in  almost  every  respect 
like  the  slaves  of  ancient  Rome.  The  records  of  successive 
councils  of  the  Christian  church,  as  traced  by  Guizot  (espe- 
cially in  French  history)  and  by  others,  show  the  long  contin- 
uance of  this  iniquity  in  a  most  oppressive  form.*  Of  the 
Roman  emperors,  Hadrian  and  Antoninus  Pius  were  the  first 
who  endeavored  to  abolish  the  power  of  life  and  death  held 
by  masters  over  their  slaves.f  This  power,  even  with  the 
father  over  his  children,  was  held  until  the  time  of  Constan- 
tine  ;  and  even  this  emperor  allowed  parents  who  were  very 
poor  to  sell  their  infants  instantly  on  their  birth.J  Meantime 
human  beings  were  constantly  reduced  to  slavery  by  wars, 
and  the  cases  of  their  redemption  or  deliverance,  through  the 
interference  of  the  church,  stand  recorded  as  remarkable  ex- 
amples. The  monastic  institutions  and  spirit  were  opposed  to 
slavery,  even  while  in  the  church  it  was  tolerated.  The  ordi- 
nance of  Louis  le  Hutin,  in  France  (anno  1315),  for  the  en- 
franchisement of  the  serfs,  cited  by  Michelet  and  Guizot,§  while 

*  GUIZOT,  History  of  Civilization,  made  in  the  image  of  our  Lord  ought 

voL  2. — Compare  MURATORI,  cited  in  to  be  free  by  natural  right,  and  that 

BLAIR,  238.  in  no  country  this  natural  liberty  or 

•f-  Fuss,  Ant.  Rom.,  ch,  1,  §  54. —  freedom  should  be  so  effaced  or  ob- 

BLAIR,  Inquiry,  85.  scured  by  the  hateful  yoke  of  servi- 

|  Fuss,  ch.  i.,  §  86.  tude,"  etc.    (Vol.  i.,  page  398.)     "  A 

§  MICHELET,  History  of  France,  voL  grand  spectacle,"  exclaims  the  histo- 

L  The  ordinance  of  Phillipe  le  Bel,  in  rian,  "  to  see  proclamations  made 

1311,  is  still  more  remarkable.  "See-  from  the  throne  itself  of  the  impre- 

iug  that  everj1-  human  creature  who  is  scriptible  right  of  every  man  to  lib- 


DECLARATION   OF  INDEPENDENCE.  405 

it  followed  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  ran  before  the  practice 
of  Christians.  This  ordinance  begins  like  our  Declaration  of 
Independence.  "Since,  according  to  the  right  of  nature, 
every  one  should  be  born  free,  and  that  by  certain  usages  and 
customs,  which  have  been  introduced  and  kept  from  great  an- 
tiquity in  our  kingdom,  and  by  adventure,  many  of  our  com- 
mon people  are  fallen*  into  conditions  of  servitude  which 
greatly  displeases  us ;  we,  considering  that  our  kingdom  is 
called  the  kingdom  of  the  FKANCS,  and  wishing  that  the 
thing  in  truth  should  agree  with  the  name,  by  deliberation  of 
our  great  council  have  ordained,  and  do  ordain,  that  generally 
throughout  our  kingdom,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  and  in  our  suc- 
cessors, such  servitudes  should  be  abolished,  and  that  freedom 
should  be  given  to  all  those  who  are  fallen  into  servitude, 
either  by  origin,  or  by  marriage,  or  by  residence."  Centuries 
before  this,  Hilary  of  Poictiers  had  said  to  the  emperor,  in  an 
epistle,  "  The  whole  labor  of  your  sovereignty  should  have 
for  its  object  to  secure  for  all  over  whom  it  extends  the 
sweetest  of  all  treasures,  liberty.  There  is  no  mode  of  ap- 
peasing troubles  until  every  one  be  emancipated  from  all  the 
fetters  of  servitude."* 

Michelet  refers  to  the  passage  of  slavery  (the  canker  and 
destruction  of  the  Roman  empire)  into  serfdom,  or  the  growth 
of  serfdom  out  of  slavery,  rooting  the  laborer^to  the  soil.  He 
cites  the  Justinian  code.  "The  tenant  follows  the  law  of  his 


erty."    The  asylum  of  the  churches,  In  550,  "  As  we  have  discovered  that 

and  the  freedom  bestowed  by  them,  several  people  reduce  again  to  servi- 

were  respected  long  before.     Never-  tude  those  who,  according  to  the  cus- 

Iheless,  it  is  proved  that  serfs  were  torn  of  the  country  have  been  set  at 

held  as  ecclesiastical  property,  and  liberty  in  the  churches,  we  order  that 

Christians,  who  would  not  suffer  Jews  every  oue  shall  keep  possession  of  the 

to  hold  slaves,  held  them  themselves,  liberty  ho  has  received,  and  if  this 

Yet  in  a  council  at  Lyons,  in  the  year  liberty  is   attacked,  justice   must   be 

567,  it  is  decreed  that  those  who  neg-  defended  by  the   church."     Gtnzor, 

lect  to  restore  to  liberty  those  that  Civiliz.,  vol.  ii. 

have  been  made  captives  by  violence  *  AGES  OF  FAITH,  vol.  i.,  232.  GIB- 

and  treason  shall  be  excommunicated.  BON,  ch.  36. 


406 


RULE   OF   ST.   BENEDICT. 


birth  ;  although  in  point  of  condition  apparently  free-born,  he 
is  the  slave  of  the  soil  on  which  he  is  born."  "  A  tenant  se- 
creting himself,  or  seeking  to  desert  from  his  patron's  estate, 
is  to  be  held  in  the  light  of  a  fugitive  slave."*  Such  is  the 
serfdom,  or  slavery,  traced  by  Guizot  in  the  councils  of  the 
church  in  France  through  nearly  six  centuries,  from  the  fourth 
to  the  tenth.f  At  the  same  time  the  example  of  personal  in- 
dustry by  the  monks  commences  an  innovation  of  free  and 
voluntary  labor,  which  is  to  be  the  basis  of  a  free  modern  ex- 
istence. "  The  rule  of  St.  Benedict  sets  the  first  example  to 
the  ancient  world,  of  labor  by  the  hands  of  freemen."J 

Ephesians  vi.,  5-9.  "  Servants  (dov/lot)  be  obedient  to 
them  that  are  your  masters  (fcvpioig)§  according  to  the  flesh, 
with  fear  and  trembling,  in  singleness  of  your  heart,  as  unto 
Christ  ;  not  with  eye-service,  as  men-pleasers,  but  as  the  ser- 
vants (Sovhoi)  of  Christ,  doing  the  will  of  God  from  the  heart, 
with  good  will  doing  service  (do^evovres)  to  the  Lord,  and 


*  MICHELET,  History  of  France, 
voL  L,  56. 

•)•  GUIZOT,  Modern  Civilization,  vol. 
ii.,  458-511. 

J  MICHELET,  L,  62.  "Charlemagne 
gratifies  his  teacher,  Alcuin,  with  a 
farm  of  twenty  thousand  slaves." 
The  Crusades  began  a  revolution  of 
liberty  in  central  Fra'hce.  "The  serfs 
had  their  own  page  of  history."  . 

§  CONYBEARE  and  HOWSON  (Life 
and  Epistles  of  Paul,  vol.  ii.,  p.  422) 
assert  that  "  the  word  icvpiof,  Lord, 
always  implies  the  idea  of  servants." 
A  strange  assertion,  as  see,  ROBINSON, 
Lex  on  the  word,  No.  3.  See  also, 
in  this  connection,  PROF.  STUART  on 
the  meaning  of  Kvpiof,  Bib.  Rep.,  vol. 
i.,  pp.  733-776.  Comparison  of  nvpiof 
and  deairorrjf,  p.  736. 

Conybeare  and  Howson  also  trans- 
late  the  word  tiovAoi,  here  and  in  1 
Tim.  vi.,  1,  also  Colossiana  and  else- 


where,  as  bondsmen,  and  they  have 
put  in  the  margin,  ''  duties  to  slaves." 
Thus,  in  fact,  they  would  take  from  the 
Scriptures  what  was  meant  to  be  the 
guidance  of  God  for  servants  in  all 
ages  and  places,  to  all  time,  and  re- 
strict  these  precious  passages  to  per- 
sons  under  a  temporary  and  wicked 
bondage,  forbidden  in  the  word  of 
God,  and  destined  to  be  utterly  abol- 
ished  1  If  these  passages  apply  to 
slaves,  to  those  who  are  the  properly 
of  their  owners,  then  they  have  no 
application  whatever  to  servants  in 
England,  in  Switzerland,  in  Germany 
in  Italy,  in  France,  in  Sweden,  in  free 
New  England  ;  any  where  and  every- 
where  in  the  world,  where  there  are 
no  slaves,  there  these  instructive  pre- 
cepts  are  in  effect  blotted  from  the 
Bible  as  superfluous,  or  indicating 
only  a  wickedness  that  has  passed 
away. 


MASTERS   AND   SERVANTS.  407 

not  to  men,  knowing  that  whatsoever  good  thing  any  man 
doeth  the  same  shall  he  receive  from  the  Lord,  whether  bond 
or  free  (elre  dovhog  Eire  t'Aevflepof).  And  ye  masters,  do  tho 
same  things  unto  them,  forbearing  threatening,  knowing  that 
your  master  also  is  in  heaven ;  neither  is  there  respect  of  per- 
sons with  him."  Compare  Col  iv.,  1,  "Masters  give  unto 
your  servants  (dovhoi?)  that  which  is  just  and  equal,  knowing 
that  ye  also  have  a  master  in  heaven." 

There  is  no  intimation  of  slavery  here,  but  on  the  contrary, 
the  rule  laid  upon  masters  forbids  the  supposition  of  slavery, 
making  it  impossible  to  consider  servants  as  slaves,  or  to  treat 
>them  as  such,  as  property;  the  masters  being  commanded  to 
regard  and  treat  their  servants  just  as  the  servants  are  com- 
manded to  regard  and  treat  their  masters,  according  to  the 
will  of  Christ,  with  a  single  and  supreme  regard  to  his  pleas- 
ure. They  could  neither  be  claimed  nor  treated  as  property 
without  the  most  direct  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  and  dis- 
regard of  the  will  of  Christ.  They  could  not  be  claimed  as 
property  without  assuming  a  mastership  and  command  over 
them  which  Christ  alone  possessed.  The  word  dovkog  con- 
trasted with  t-Aevflepof  by  no  means  proves  the  significance  of 
slave,  since  that  was  the  very  mode  of  comparison  and  con- 
trast become  the  ordinary  Jewish  servant,  who  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  a  slave,  and  the  freeman.  The  servant  hired  for  six 
years  would  be  called  dovko$,  in  contrast  with  his  master  as 
K^evdepog,  or  with  any  person  not  in  domestic  or  household 
service.  The  contrast,  bond  and  free,  was  a  customary  con- 
trast between  simple  service  and  the  state  of  freedom  from 
such  service,  and  inasmuch  as  the  word  here  translated  bond 
is  doiiXog,  in  every  other  instance  in  tho  passage  translated 
servant,  there  is  no  reason  for  changing  this  translation.  If 
it  read  in  English,  "  whether  servant  or  free,"  the  whole  sense 
of  the  passage  would  be  perfectly  conveyed.  There  is  no  in- 
timation or  proof  whatever  of  slavery  in  the  language,  while, 


408 


MASTERS   AND   SERVANTS. 


on  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  absolute  interdiction  of  slavery 
by  the  precept,  by  the  whole  tenor  and  meaning. 

ADAM  CLARKE'S  energetic  testimony  against  slavery,  under 
this  passage,  is  here  to  be  noted.  "  Though  dovAof  frequently 
signifies  a  slave  or  bondman,  yet  it  often  implies  a  servant  in 
general,  or  any  one  bound  to  another,  either  for  a  limited 
time  or  for  life.*  In  heathen  countries  slavery  was  in  some  sort 
excusable ;  amongst  Christians  it  is  an  enormity  and  9  crime, 
for  which  perdition  has  scarcely  an  adequate  state  of  punish- 
ment."— Comm.  on  Eph.  vi.,  5. 


*  THIRL  WALL  (History  of  Greece) 
affirms  that  Aristotle  sometimes  em- 
ployed the  word  SovXoi  to  signify  the 
whole  mass  of  the  people  who  were 
not  citizens. 

The  late  DR.  THOMSON,  of  Edin- 
burgh, maintained,  with  great  power  of 
eloquence,  the  righteous  love  of  liberty 
inspired  by  the  gospel,  and  the  inhe- 
rent iniquity  of  tho  relations  of  slav- 
ery. "  I  appeal,"  said  he,  "  to  the  in- 
herent and  efficacious  power  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  determining  all  in  whom  it 
really  dwells  to  aspire  after  liberty  as 
the  object  of  their  keen  ambition,  to 
cleave  to  it  as  the  object  of  their  fond 
and  decided  attachment.  If  you  in- 
troduce the  principles  and  sentiments 
of  Christianity  into  the  heart  of  any 
individual,  you  introduce  into  his 
heart  the  very  elements  of  freedom ; 
you  infuse  that  which  he  feels  to  be  at 
eternal  variance  with  every  species  of 
bondage ;  you  prepare  him  for  throw- 


ing off  the  yoke,  with  an  energy 
which  may  be  calm  and  secret,  but 
which  is  also  potent  and  irresistible  in 
its  operations.  Let  his  faith  be  strong 
in  the  truths  of  revelation,  and  let 
him  experience  their  practical  influ- 
ence, and  the  consequence  is,  that 
without  waiting  to  compare  what  he 
is  with  what  he  ought  to  be,  or  calcu- 
lating on  the  advantages  of  exchang- 
ing the  one  situation  for  the  other,  he 
is  constrained,  as  it  were,  by  instinct 
to  aim  at  the  transition,  and  to  seek 
for  disenthralment  from  the  tyranny 
that  presses  him  to  the  earth.  There 
is  something  within  him  which  is  ab- 
horrent of  whatsoever  goes  to  consti- 
tute him  a  slave.  His  soul  has  ac- 
quired an  elasticity  that  bids  him  rise 
with  the  silent  and  resistless  force  of 
nature  to  that  place  in  the  creation  of 
God  in  which  alone,  as  his  congenial 
clime,  he  can  breathe,  live,  and  be 
happy." 


CHAPTER    XXXVII. 


EPISTLES  TO  TOE  PHILIPPIANS  AND  COLOSSIANS. — THAT  WHICH  is  JUST  AND  EQUAL. — 
NATURE  OP  THE  KULE,  AND  ITS  CONCLUSIONS, — IT  ABOLISHES  SLAVERY. — EPISTLE  TO 
THE  TlIESSALONIANS. 


PHILIPPIANS  i.,  1.  "  Paul  and  Timotheus,  the  servants 
(Sov^oi)  of  Jesns  Christ."  (See  on  Rom.,  p.  383,  and  1  Cor., 
p.  386). 

Phil,  ii.,  7,  spoken  of  Christ,  who  "  took  upon  him  the  form 
of  a  servant  (dcw/lcw)."  Here  is  an  incontrovertible  instance  in  * 
which  dovXoc;  can  neither  mean  slave,  nor  be  translated  by  the 
word  slave.  It  would  be  false  to  the  reality,  and  a  violence 
against  the  meaning  of  the  passage,  to  say  that  our  blessed  Lord 
took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  slave.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
formed  in  fashion  as  A  MAN,  not  as  a  slave,  and  to  have  humbled 
himself  as  A  MAN,  not  as  a  slave.  He  could  not  be  said,  in  any 
sense,  to  have  taken  upon  him  the  form  of  a  slave,  unless  he 
had  been  born  a  slave,  of  a  slave  mother,  according  to  the  in- 
famous slave  law,  "partus  sequitur  ventrem  y"  unless  he  had 
been  born  the  property  of  a  slave-owner,  the  chattel  of  a  mas- 
ter, who  would  have  the  right  by  law  to  have  sold  him  and 
his  mother  together,  or  him  as  a  child,  without  respect  to  his 
mother.  This,  therefore,  is  a  case  in  which  dovkog  does  cer- 
tainly mean  merely  and  only  a  person  in  the  condition  of  a 
servant,  not  a  slave.  In  taking  the  form  of  a  man,  he  took 
the  form  of  a  servant  of  God,  a  servant  under  subjection  to 
the  law  of  God,  but  not  the  form  of  a  chattel  of  man,  a  slave 
18 


410  EPISTLE   TO   THE    COLOSSI  ANS. 

owned  'as  property  by  his  master.     Such  a  sense  of  the  word 
is  to  be  rejected  with  abhorrence.* 

EVIDENCE   FKOM   THE   EPISTLES   TO   THE   COLOSSIANS   AND 
THESSALONIANS. 

Colossians  i.,  7.  "  Epaphras,  our  dear  fellow-servant  (ovv 
(JdvAov)."  Compare  iv.,  12.  "Epaphras,  a  servant  (dot'Aof), 
of  Christ,"  and  iv.,  7,  "  Tychicus,  a  faithful  minister  and  fellow- 
servant  in  the  Lord,  dLatcovog  itai  avvdovkog." 

Col.  iii.,  11.  "Neither  Barbarian  nor  Scythian,  bond  nor 
free,"  dov/tof,  iXevBepo^.  The  same  remarks  apply  here  as  on 
Eph.  vi.,  8.  There  is  no  intimation  of  slavery  or  its  sanction 
in  the  Church,  but  an  exclusion  and  condemnation  of  it.f 

Col.  iii.,  18-24.  The  same  body  of  instructions  as  in  Eph. 
v.,  to  husbands,  wives,  parents,  children,  and  servants.  "  Wives, 
submit  yourselves  unto  your  own  husbands,  as  it  is  fit  in  the 
Lord."  Impossible  in  the  state  of  slavery.  "  Children,  obey 
your  parents  in  all  things,  for  this  is  well  pleasing  unto  the 
Lord."  Impossible  in  the  state  of  slavery.  "  Servants  (doi;- 
Aot),  obey  in  all  things  your  masters,  according  to  the  flesh  ; 
not  with  eye-service,  as  men-pleasers,  but  in  singleness  of 
heart,  fearing  God."  "  For  ye  serve  the  Lord  Christ  (dov- 
Aevere)."  This  does  not  mean  ye  are  enslaved  to  the  Lord 
Christ,  but  ye  serve  him,  as  his  freemen,  from  the  heart.  Coni- 

*  CAMPBELL  on  the  Gospels,  Pre-  he  formed  man,  made  him  not  bond, 

limary  Discourses.  Dis.  iv.,  vol.  i.  but  free.  Behold,  slavery  came  of 

Also  voL  ii.,  cb.  xx.  "It  is  solely  sin.  Slavery  is  the  punishmeet  of 

from  the  scope  and  connections  that  sin,  and  arose  from  disobedience.  But 

we  must  judge  when  it  should  be  ren-  when  Christ  appeared,  he  removed 

dered  hi  the  one  way,  and  when  in  this  cause,  for  in  Christ  Jesus  there  is 

the  other."  See  also  POOLE,  Aunot.  neither  bond  nor  free."  Chrysostom 

on  Phil.  Compare  HOWE  on  the  elsewhere  intimates  that  if  a  pure 

Faithful  Servant,  works,  965.  Christian  feeling  were  prevalent,  slav- 

f  See  CHRYSOSTOM'S  Homilies,  ci-  ery  would  cease.  Compare  NEANDER'S 

ted  by  NEANDER,  in  his  Life  of  Chrys-  Church  History,  vol.  iiL,  p.  356.  Also 

ostom,  pp.  413-416.  "  There  was  no  MEMORIALS  of  Christian  Life,  page 

slave  in  the  old  tunes  ;  for  God,  when  196. 


THAT   WHICH    IS   JUST   AND   EQUAL.  411 

pare  the  whole  with  Eph.  vi.  5-9,  and  the  remarks  on  the 
meaning  of  the  word  Jov/lof  in  the  same  connection  there. 

Col.  iv.,  1.  "Masters,  give  unto  your  servants  (dovkotg) 
that  which  is  just  and  equal;  knowing  that  ye  also  have  a 
Master  in  heaven."  This  commandment  would  abolish  slavery 
throughout  the  world.  It  is  impossible  to  give  to  a  servant 
that  which  is  just  and  equal,  and  yet  treat  him  as  a  slave.  In 
making  him  a  slave,  all  justice  and  equality  is  denied  him. 
In  claiming  him  as  a  slave,  and  treating  him  as  property, 
which  is  the  essence  of  slavery,  nothing  is  given  him  but 
cruelty ;  every  right  of  a  human  being  is  withheld  frcm  him ; 
nothing  but  injustice  and  inequality  are  forced  xipon  him. 

There  is  no  law  of  justice  or  equality  in  behalf  of  the  slave  ; 
no  obligation  on  the  part  of  his  owner  toward  him  is  ever  pre- 
tended, but  for  his  (the  owner's)  sole  benefit.  It  is  even  de- 
clared that  slaves  have  no  marital  rights,  much  less  any  right 
to  wages,  or  any  of  the  privileges  or  natural  possessions  of  a 
freeman.  The  slave  has  no  right  even  to  his  peck  of  meal  a 
week,  if  his  owner  chooses  to  withhold  it.  The  plea  of  justice 
and  equality  toward  American  slaves  is  just  merely  the  fanati- 
cism of  Abolitionism.  True;  and  this  is  the  fanaticism  of  the 
New  Testament ;  and  this  one  injunction  of  Paul  to  masters, 
as  to  the  treatment  of  servants,  would  break  up  and  abolish  the 
system  of  American  slavery  forever,  and  prevent  the  possi- 
bility of  the  crime  of  slaveholding  wherever  the  law  of  God  is 
regarded  and  obeyed. 

Foi-,  1.  The  very  first  article  of  justice  and  equality  toward 
a  servant  requires  that  he  be  treated  as  a  human  being,  and 
not  as  a  brute,  or  chattel,  but  as  a  human  being  having  a  right 
inalienable  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ;  a 
right  to  dispose  of  his  own  services,  and  a  right  to  a  just  rec- 
ompense therefor. 

2.  The  rule  of  justice  and  equality  in  regard  to  servants,  as 
to  all  classes  of  men,  was  to  be  found  in  the  Word  of  God,  and 
not  in  men's  own  perverted  ideas  of  self-interest,  or  the  right 


412  THE   EULE   IN  THE   DIVINE  LAW. 

of  conquest  or  of  power ;  not  in  any  Roman,  Greek,  or  Pa- 
gan code  of  laws,  but  in  the  Divine  law.  This,  and  this  alone, 
was  the  acknowledged  guide  of  the  conscience  of  the  Chris- 
tian. To  this,  therefore,  he  must  refer  to  learn  what,  in  God's 
sight,  was  the  treatment  of  servants  pronounced  just  and 
equal,  and  required  of  all. 

3.  The  treatment  of  men  as  merchandise  was  forbidden  in 
that  law.     To  make  any  man  a  slave,  or  to  hold  him  as  such, 
or  to  sell  him,  was  forbidden  on  pain  of  death.     Therefore  to 
treat  a  servant  as  a  slave  was  to  be  guilty  of  a  crime  against 
him  punishable  with  death.     That  which  is  just  and  equal 
could  not  be  given  to  him  in  any  way  while  he  was  treated  as 
a  slave ;  for  his  very  manhood  and  all  its  rights  were  taken 
from  him. 

4.  The  law  of  God  required  that,  without  respect  to  per- 
sons, "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself;  and  what- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so 
to  them."     If  men  would  not  themselves  be  made  slaves,  or 
suffer  their  own  children  to  be  made  slaves,  then  they  ought 
not  to  make  slaves  of  others. 

The  consequence  is  plain,  that  both  by  natural  right  and  by 
the  law  of  God,  to  which  the  apostle  always  refers  as  the  ac- 
knowledged supreme  rule  of  duty,  this  precept  must  have 
rendered  slavery  impossible.  Had  there  been  not  another 
word  in  the  New  Testament  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  this 
one  precept  would  abolish  it,  would  brand  it  as  a  crime,  would 
forbid  it  as  a  cruelty  and  injustice  incompatible  with  Christi- 
anity, and  which,  if  any  professed  Christian  were  guilty  of  it, 
must  exclude  him  from  the  Christian  church  as  an  extortioner 
and  a  man-stealer.* 

*  Compare,  on  page  350,  the  notice  from  bondage,  "  The  noble   disposi- 

of  Isidore   and   Augustine's   abhor-  tion  (a  man  of  noble  disposition)  frees 

rence  of  slavery,  and  declarations  of  those    whom     violence     has     made 

its  incompatibility  with  Christianity,  slaves."     NEANDER,  Church  History( 

Among  the  works  of  Christian  piety,  vol.   iii.     CHRYSOSTOM,  rebuking  the 

Isidore  names  the  redeeming  of  slaves  rich  and  the  nobles,  who  pretended 


EPISTLE   TO   THESSALONIANS.  413 

GiVE  UNTO  YOUR  SERVANTS  THAT  WHICH  IS  JUST  AND  EQUAL, 

was  a  fit  inscription  over  the  gate  of  the  New  Testament  in 
this  branch  of  morals  and  of  domestic  economy  ;  as  over  the 
gate  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  inscription,  HE  THAT  STEAL- 

ETH  A  MAN,  AND  SELLETH  HIM,  OR  IF  HE  BE  FOUND  IN  HIS 
HANDS,  SHALL  SURELY  BE  PUT  TO  DEATH.  Between  these  tWO 

slavery  is  abolished  for  ever. 

2  Thes.  iii.,  10-12.  "For  even  when  we  were  with  you, 
this  we  commanded  you,  that  if  any  would  not  work,  neither 
should  he  eat.  For  we  hear  that  there  are  some  which  walk 
among  you  disorderly,  working  not  at  all,  but  are  busy  bodies. 
Now  them  that  are  such  we  command  and  exhort  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  with  quietness  they  work,  and  eat 
their  own  bread."  These  precepts  show  that  a  state  of  society 
was  founded  and  formed  by  the  gospel,  in  which  manual  labor 
for  the  earning  of  one's  bread  was  so  far  from  being  incon- 
sistent with  the  dignity  and  freedom  of  manhood,  that  if  any 
one  refused  it,  and  would  live  without  labor,  the  law  of  Chris- 
tianity itself  would  leave  him  to  starve  in  his  chosen  gentility 
and  indolence.  The  publication  of  this  rule  may  have  been 
found  especially  necessary  to  correct  the  supposition,  that  be- 
cause masters  were  forbidden  from  making  slaves  of  their 

to  permit  a  crowd  of  slaves  to  follow  Horn,  in  Acts  Apost.,  xi.,  cited  by 

them,  out  of  philanthropy,  said,  "  If  NEANDER  in  Life  of  Chrysostom. 

ye  cared  for  these  men  ye  would  buy  "  If  any  one  ask,"  said  Chrysostom, 

them,  let  them  leara  trades,  that  they  "  whence  came  slavery  into  the  world 

might  support  themselves,  and  then  (for  I  have  known  many  who  desired 

give  them  freedom."     The  Christian  to  learn  this),  I  will  tell  him.    Iiisa- 

spirit  of  Chrysostom  revolted  against  tiable  avarice  and  envy  are  the  pa- 

the  traffic  in  human  flesh,  as  well  as  rents   of   slavery ;    for   Noah.  Abel, 

against    slavery.      Referring  to  the  Seth,  and  their  descendants,  had  not 

communion  of  possessions  at  Jerusa-  slaves.     Sin  hath  begotten   slavery ; 

lem,  the  Christians  selling  their  goods,  then,  wars  and  battles,  in  which  men 

and  supposing  the  possibility  of  their  were  made   captives."     There   were 

example  being  followed,  he  cautions  those  in  Chrysostom's  time,  as  in  ours, 

the  people  against  imagining  any  "  sale  who  appealed    to    father  Abraham, 

of  slaves,  for  that  did  not  exist  in  those  "  But  ye  say  that  Abram  had  slaves. 

limes,  but  equitably  they  were  per-  Aye,  but  he  treated  them  not  as 
mitted  to  be  freo."  —  CHRYSOSTOM, 


414  SOCIALISM   OF   THE    GOSPEL. 

servants,  therefore  the  servants  were  released  from  the  neces- 
sity of  working,  or  the  duty  of  obeying  their  lawful  masters. 
The  privileges  of  the  gospel  freedom  were  guarded  on  all 
sides  from  licentiousness.  It  was  as  much  the  duty  of  the 
servant  to  work,  and  to  do  his  work  faithfully,  as  it  was  of 
the  master  to  pay  his  wages,  giving  to  his  servants  that  which 
is  just  and  equal. 

The  law  of  love  was  to  bind  each  class  to  the  other,  in  mu- 
tual dependence  and  obligation,  and  all  together  to  Christ. 
The  socialism  of  the  gospel  expels  slavery  on  the  one  side 
and  pride  on  the  other ;  servility  on  the  one  side  and  arro- 
gance on  the  other ;  and  the  true  freedom  of  the  gospel 
transfigures  society  with  the  happiness  and  content  of  heaven. 
With  what  heaven-instructed  impartiality  does  the  apostle 
apply  the  principles  of  justice  and  of  love  at  one  and  the  same 
time  to  the  highest  and  the  lowest.  After  enjoining  a  be- 
havior from  servants  towards  their  masters  inspired  with  good 
will,  and  fraught  with  deferential  observance  of  duty  in  sin- 
gleness of  heart  as  unto  Christ,  doing  service  as  to  the  Lord 
and  not  to  men,  he  adds,  And  ye  masters  do  the  same  things 
unto  them.  Where  on  earth  was  the  character  of  the  servant 
and  the  quality  of  service  ever  so  exalted,  so  combined  and 
dignified,  with  the  highest  independence  ?  It  is  a  picture  of 
social  equality,  with  the  preservation  of  just  distinctions,  in 
harmony  and  love,  to  which  there  has  never  been  an  approach 
outside  of  divine  revelation.  And,  indeed,  the  wondrous 
treatment  of  the  subject,  at  the  same  time  that  slavery  is 
branded  as  a  crime  worthy  of  death,  is  in  itself  a  proof  of 
divine  inspiration. 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII. 

EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLES  TO  TIMOTHY  AND  TITUS.— THE  GOSPEL  AGAINST  MEN* 
BTEALEP.S.— ITS  COMPREHENSIVENESS  AND  MEANING.— SERVANTS  UNDER  THE  YOKE.— 
BELIEVING  MASTERS. — TUE  LAW  OF  GOD  IN  REGABD  TO  THEM. — SLAVERY  FORBIDDEN 
IN  THE  CHURCHES. 

1  TIMOTHY  i.,  9,  10,  11.  "Knowing  this,  that  the  law  is 
not  made  for  a  righteous  man,  but  for  the  lawless  and  diso- 
bedient, for  the  ungodly  and  profane,  for  the  murderers  of 
fathers  and  murderers  of  mothers,  for  man-slayers,  for  whore- 
mongers, for  them  that  defile  themselves  with  mankind,  for 
MEN  STEALERS,  for  liars,  for  perjured  persons,  and  if  there  be 
any  other  thing  that  is  contrary  to  sound  doctrine,  according 
to  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God,  which  was  com- 
mitted to  my  trust." 

Paul  is  here  instructing  Timothy  how  to  preach  the  gospel, 
and  he  informs  him  that  he  must  do  it  by  the  faithful  applica- 
tion of  the  law  to  all  the  sins  forbidden  by  the  law,  some  of 
the  worst  of  which  sins  he  enumerates,  and  among  them  the 
sin  of  MAN-STEALING,  referring  unquestionably  to  Ex.  xxi.  16, 
"  He  that  stealeth  a  man,  and  selleth  him,  or  if  he  be  found 
in  his  hand,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death."  That  the  refer- 
ence is  explicitly  to  this  law  there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt, 
since  the  context  of  crimes,  murderers  of  fathers,  murderers 
of  mothers,  man-slayers,  etc.,  is  the  very  catalogue  in  the 
chapter  of  the  law  in  Exodus,  in  which  the  crime  of  man- 
stealing  is  defined  and  forbidden. 

The  apostle  declares  that  it  is  as  much  the  duty  of  the 
preacher  of  the  gospel  to  preach  against  that  crime,  with  and 
under  the  gospel,  as  it  is  to  preach  against  murder,  adultery, 
lying,  profaneness,  and  all  other  sins.  It  is  the  legitimate 


416  THE   GOSPEL   TO   MEX-STEALERS. 

office  of  the  gospel  to  proclaim  the  law  against  man-stealing, 
and  certainly  to  apply  it  in  all  its  meaning,  against  every  form 
of  the  crime,  against  holding  a  man  as  a  slave,  and  against 
making  merchandise  of  him,  as  well  as  against  the  original 
stealing  of  him.  The  forcible  continuance  of  a  man  in  the 
condition  of  a  slave,  a  stolen  man,  would  be  just  a  repetition 
and  continuance  of  the  original  man-stealing,  and,  therefore, 
the  application  of  this  law,  under  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
gospel,  and  for  the  purpose  of  the  gospel,  to  bring  men  away 
from  such  sins,  and  to  save  them  in  Christ,  must  be  made  to 
the  slaveholder ;  and  it  would  inevitably  forbid,  break  up, 
and  destroy  the  crime  of  slaveholding,  as  a  crime  inconsistent 
with  Christianity,  forbidden  of  God,  and  set  down  by  him  in 
the  same  catalogue  with  that  of  the  murder  of  fathers  and 
mothers. 

In  this  view,  a  more  tremendous  passage  against  slavery 
does  not  exist  than  this.  It  binds  the  preachers  of  Christ  and 
him  crucified  to  make  the  application  of  the  law  of  God  against 
this  crime  a  part  of  their  gospel  preaching.  They  can  not  be 
faithful  preachers  of  the  gospel  without  preaching,  in  the  name 
and  by  the  authority  of  Christ  and  his  cross,  against  this  sin 
of  making  merchandise  of  men,  of  holding  or  selling  human 
beings  as  property,  as  slaves.  Let  the  gospel  be  preached  ac- 
cording to  Paul's  instructions,  and  let  the  churches  apply  the 
discipline  of  Christ  accordingly  to  the  sinners  under  this  cate- 
gory, and  slavery  would  be  abolished  from  our  land. 

The  Greek  word  for  men-stealers  is  dvdpaTrodto-alg.  Lid- 
dell  and  Scott  define  the  word  thus :  a  slave-dealer ;  also 
one  who  kidnaps  freemen  or  slaves,  to  sell  them  again.  The 
Greek  verb,  avdparrodi^  signifies  to  reduce  to  slavery,  to  en- 
slave ;  in  the  passive,  to  be  sold  into  slavery.  Dr.  Robinson  de- 
fines the  word  as  follows :  a  slave-dealer,  man-stealer,  1  Tim. 
i.,  10;  comparo  Ex.  xxi.,  16;  Deut.  xxiv.,  7. — Pol.  12,  9.  2; 
Xen.  Mem.  1,  2,  6. 

The  authorities  show  that  the  word  means  a  slave-dealer, 


AGAINST   SLAVE-DEALERS.  417 

and  also  a  man-stealer  ;  and  the  apostle,  by  using  this  word  as 
a  synonyme  of  that  crime  which  in  Ex.  xxi.,  16  is  forbidden 
on  pain  of  death,  shows  that  any  man  making  merchandise  of 
men  is  guilty  of  that  crime  ;  the  slave-dealer,  the  slave-trader, 
the  slave-buyer,  the  slave-seller  is  the  man-stealer. 

The  man  who  sanctions  and  employs  the  slave-dealer,  re- 
ceiving from  him  a  man  as  merchandise,  or  putting  into  his 
hands  a  man  to  be  sold  as  merchandise,  is  himself  the  guilty 
party,  the  man-stealer.  Any  man  who  has  any  thing  to  do  with 
the  crime,  either  as  go-between,  or  buyer,  or  seller  of  a  man, 
or  holding  him  as  property,  is  implicated  in  the  guilt  of  man- 
stealing.  They  who  pass  laws  sanctifying  this  iniquity  only 
increase  the  guilt ;  they  who  practice  it  under  the  laws  that 
sustain  it  can  not  extricate  themselves  in  that  way  from  the 
crime,  but  are  guilty  of  it  before  God.  The  nation  that  de- 
fends and  practices  it  by  law  is  a  nation  of  MEN-STEALERS. 

The  attempt  to  evade  the  terrible  power  of  this  passage, 
by  directing  it  against  slave-stealers,  as  if  the  stealing  of  a 
slave  was  what  God  has  forbidden,  while  the  stealing  of  a  man 
is  not  forbidden  at  all,  is  futile,  because  the  reference  of  the 
apostle  is  to  the  Hebrew  law  against  man-stealing,*  and  not 
to  any  law  against  slave  stealing,  there  being  no  such  law. 
It  was  enough  to  forbid  the  stealing  of  a  man  ;  for  that  pre- 
vented the  possibility  of  there  being  such  a  thing  as  a  slave 
to  steal.  If  there  had  been  such  a  thing,  then  the  stealing  of 
a  slave  would  have  been  a  crime  simply  because  it  was  the 
stealing  of  a  man,  and  not  because  it  was  the  stealing  of  a 
slave ;  the  stealing  of  a  man  from  himself,  and  not  the  steal- 
ing of  a  slave  from  his  master.  There  is  no  law  in  the  Old 
Testament  or  the  New  against  slave  stealing  ;  there  is  against 
man-stealers.  There  are  no  such  criminals  recognized  as 

*  GROTIUS,   Opera,   Comm.,  in  loc.  mum  est  furti  genus  hominem  liberum 

Grotius  refers  to  both  forms  of  the  law  furari.      The    imagination   of   slave 

in  Ex.  xxi.,  16,   and  Deut.  xxiv.,  7.  stealing  being  here  referred  to  did  not 

He  adds  that  the  stealing  of  a  freeman  enter  into  his  mind, 
is  the  highest  kind  of  theft.     Maxi- 


418  AGAINST   ALL   MERCHANDISE   OF   MEN". 

slave-stealers  /  but  there  are  as  men-stealers,  and  it  is  men- 
stealers,  and  men-merchants,  men  buyers  and  sellers  that  are 
condemned  to  death.  And  Paul  commands  that  the  law  of 
God  and  the  gospel  of  Christ  be  preached  against  this  crime. 
It  is  an  argument  of  wonderful  power  against  slavery. 

ADAM  CLARKE'S  note  on  this  passage  is  comprehensive. 
"  A.vbpa7rodia-aig,  slave-dealers  ;  whether  those  who  carry  on 
the  traffic  in  human  flesh  and  blood  ;  or  those  who  steal  a  per- 
son in  order  to  sell  him  into  bondage  ;  or  those  who  buy  such 
stolen  men  and  women,  no  matter  of  what  color  or  what  coun- 
try ;  or  those  who  sow  dissensions  among  barbarous  tribes,  in 
order  that  they  who  are  taken  in  war  may  be  sold  into  slav 
ery ;  or  the  nations  who  legalize  or  connive  at  such  traffic — • 
all  these  are  MAN-STEALERS,  and  God  classes  them  with  the 
most  flagitious  of  mortals."* 

CONYBEARE  and  Howsox  (vol.  2,  p.  464)  translate  the  word 
as  Clarke  does,  slave-dealers.  They  add,  this  is  the  literal 
translation  of  the  word.  If,  then,  the  gospel  of  God  is  to  be 
preached  against  slave-dealers,  it  is  because  the  traffic  in  hu- 
man beings,  as  property,  is  condemned  of  God  in  his  law  as  a 
crime.  Any  man  is  a  slave-dealer  who  buys  or  sells,  or  buys 

*  See  also  LUCIAN'S  DIALOGUES,  sold,  but  thinks  himself  nevertheless 

The   Sale   of  Philosophers.      Jasper  free." 

Mayne's  translation,  1638.      Oxford,         See  also  Fuss,  Roman  Antiquities, 

fol.,  p.  382.    "  MEKCURY.  You,  fellow,  ch.  i.,  53.     Also  BLAIR'S  Inquiry  on 

with   the   scrip   over  your  shoulder,  the  State  of  Slavery,  pp.  32,  52,  45. 

stand  forth,  and  walk  round  the  as-  The  traffic  in  slaves  was  carried  to  a 

sembly.     0  yes  !    I  sell  a  stout,  vir-  greater  height   in   Rome   during  its 

tuous,  well-bred,  free  mortal  1     Who  days  of  prosperity  and  luxury  than 

buys  him  ?  any  where  else ;   the  market    being 

"  MERCHANT.  Do  you  sell  a  freeman,  furnished  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 

Crier  ?  but  chiefly  from  Greece  and  Asia,  and 

"  MERCURY.   Yes  I  men  free  by  birth  being  kidnapped 

"MERCHANT.  Are  you  not  afraid  he  everywhere    to    supply  it. — POTTER, 

should  accuse  you  of  MAN-STEALTH,  Antiq.  Greece,  vol.  ii.,  81,  by  whom 

and  summon  you  before  the  Areopa-  Aristophanes  is  cited,  using  the  word 

avtipanodtaTuv  for  the  traffic. 
MERCURY.  He  cares  not  for  being 


IN   THE   CHURCH.  419 

and  holds  a  man  as  a  slave  ;  so  that  inevitably  the  slaveholder 
comes  under  this  condemnation.  And  this  is  Gnonus'  inter- 
pretation of  the  law. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  set  the  gospel  against  slave-dealers 
if  it  were  not  contrary  to  the  gospel  to  hold  men  as  slaves,  to 
make  merchandise  of  men.  The  only  reason  for  the  infamy 
attaching  to  the  profession  and  character  of  a  slave-dealer,  is 
because  slavery  itself  is  criminal  and  infamous,  just  as  a  pimp  is 
an  infamous  character,  because  adultery  is  infamous.  If  the  hold- 
ing of  slaves  were  righteous,  the  dealing  in  them  would  be  right- 
eous also  ;  if  the  slaveholder  can  be  received  into  good  soci- 
ety, the  slave-dealer  is  equally  worthy  of  it ;  if  the  slaveholder 
can  be  admitted  into  the  Christian  church,  the  slave-dealer 
can  also.  On  the  other  hand,  if  slave-dealing  is  criminal,  it  is 
because  slaveholding  is  a  crime,  and  if  the  slave-dealer  is  infa- 
mous, the  slaveholder  is  likewise.  The  apostle,  therefore,  in 
setting  up  the  slave-dealer  as  a  personification  of  crime  and 
infamy,  along  with  the  murderer,  for  the  condemnation  of  the 
law  and  the  gospel,  and  thus  excluding  him  from  the  Christian 
church,  does  the  same  with  the  slaveholder,  for  what  belongs 
to  the  one  belongs  of  necessity  to  the  other.  If  the  church 
excludes  the  one,  it  must  the  other. 

The  practice  by  nations  of  a  crime  denounced  by  the  Lord 
God  as  worthy  of  death  in  individuals,  the  sanctioning  and 
pursuing  by  law  of  what  God  has  forbidden  under  any  and  all 
circumstances,  has  never  on  earth  been  so  terribly  illustrated 
as  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  in  the  United 
States  of  America.  At  this  day  the  crime  of  kidnapping,,  the 
crime  of  stealing  men  and  converting  them  into  property  for  gain, 
is  being  committed  openly  by  professedly  Christian  States,  with- 
out scruple,  without  compunction,  without  shame,  in  unparal- 
leled defiance  both  of  God  and  man.  Christian  States  are  by  law 
doing  precisely  what  the  United  States  laws  denounce  and  pun- 
ish as  piracy  ;  seizing  free  citizens,  and  selling  them  as  slaves. 

The  example  of  a  pagan  nation  before  the  coming  of  Christ 


420  MEN-STEALING   BY   THE   NATION. 

is  here  followed  under  the  light  of  Christianity.  In  pagan 
Greece  Pericles  is  said  to  have  proposed  a  law  that  only  those 
who  were  born  of  parents  that  were  Athenians  on  both  sides 
should  be  reputed  free  citizens  of  Athens.  Having  prevailed 
upon  the  people  to  give  their  consent,  little  less  than  five  thou- 
sand free  citizens  were  at  once  deprived  of  their  freedom  and 
sold  as  slaves.*  Our  State  piety  has  improved  on  the  obedi- 
ence of  paganism,  and  our  rulers,  under  the  teachings  of  the 
gospel  according  to  slavery,  do  not  have  to  ask  the  people  for 
leave  to  sacrifice  their  liberties,  but  first  pass  the  law,  and  then 
compel  the  people  to  obey  it. 

1  Tim.  vi.,  2.  "  Let  as  many  servants  (dovXoi)  as  are  under 
the  yoke  (VTTO  %vybv)  count  their  own  masters  (deonorag)  wor- 
thy of  all  honor,  that  the  name  of  God  and  his  doctrine  be  not 
blasphemed.  And  they  that  have  believing  masters,  let  them 
not  despise  them,  because  they  are  brethren,  but  rather  do 
them  service,  because  they  are  faithful  and  beloved,  partakers 
of  the  benefit.  These  things  teach  and  exhort."  This  passage 
is  a  proof  of  the  completeness  of  divine  inspiration  in  guarding 
against  the  abuse  of  doctrines  that  might  have  been  perverted 
to  evil,  though  perfect  in  good.  After  the  injunctions  against 
slavery,  the  reference  to  the  Hebrew  law  branding  it  as  a 
crime  worthy  of  death,  and  the  precept,  "  If  thou  mayst  be 
made  free,  use  it  rather,"  a  stampede  of  slaves  from  their 
heathen  masters  might  have  been  apprehended,  which  could 
have  been  attended  (before  the  diffusion  and  knowledge  of 
the  truth  and  will  of  God  in  Christ  concerning  it)  with  nothing 
but  disaster.  The  "Word  of  God  faithfully  proclaimed  against 
this  as  other  sins,  was  to  put  an  end  to  slavery ;  and  when 
heathen  masters  became  Christian,  and  were  acquainted  with 
the  laws  of  God  in  the  Scriptures,  then  they  would  see  and 
acknowledge  the  wickedness  of  this  crime. 

But  until  then  the  converted  slaves  were  enjoined  to  obey 

*  AECHB.  POTTER,  Grecian  Antiquities,  vol.  il,  p.  55.    BLAIR'S  Inquiry. 


HEATHEN   AND   BELIEVING   MASTERS.  421 

their  ignorant  heathen  masters,  so  far  a.9  they  could  do  it  con- 
sistently with  the  law  of  God  and  their  supreme  allegiance  to 
their  Saviour,  and  as  far  as  possible  to  honor  them,  that  they 
might  not  suppose  that  the  Christian  doctrine  was  a  doctrine 
teaching  disobedience,  idleness,  insolence,  or  pride  and  insub- 
ordination from  servants  to  superiors.  To  avoid  any  danger 
of  such  perversion,  any  occasion  of  thus  blaspheming  God  and 
Christianity,  the  converted  slaves  were  enjoined  even  to  be 
doubly  careful  and  diligent  to  please  their  masters,  for  just 
the  same  reason  that  a  wife  was  enjoined  to  use  the  same 
carefulness  toward  an  unbelieving  or  heathenish  husband,  in 
order  that  if  possible  the  unbelieving  husband,  ignorant  of  the 
Word,  might  be  won  to  Christ  by  the  sweet  behavior  of  the 
wife.  Just  so  with  the  converted  slave,  and  his  yet  unenlight- 
ened, unconverted  master.  As  long  as  he  staid  with  him,  he 
must  endeavor  doubly  to  honor  and  to  please  him,  in  order  to 
win  him,  if  possible,  to  an  examination  of  the  religious  teach- 
ing and  spirit  which  could  produce  such  lovely  fruits  of  pa- 
tient obedience  and  faithfulness. 

But  it  was  only  in  regard  to  unbelieving  heathen  masters 
that  this  was  spoken.  It  is  such  only  who  are  supposed  to 
continue  to  hold  slaves.  For  the  moment  a  man  came  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  his  eyes  were  opened 
by  the  word  of  God  to  see  that  the  holding  of  men  as  prop- 
erty, the  making  merchandise  of  men,  was  a  crime  placed  of 
God  along  with  that  of  murder.  The  moment  a  man  was 
converted,  the  gospel  command  came  also  upon  him  to  give 
unto  his  servants  that  which  was  just  and  equal,  and  he  learned 
that  they  were  no  longer  slaves,  but  brethren  beloved,  and 
entitled  to  the  rights  of  freemen  under  God's  law.  That 
which  was  just  and  equal  involved,  first  of  all,  an  entire  relin- 
quishment  of  all  claim  of  property  in  them  and  over  them.  A 
servant  under  such  a  master  was  no  longer  under  the  yoke, 
but  freed  from  it  by  having  a  believing  master. 

And  now,  in  regard  to  this  class  of  servants,  who  knew  their 


422  SERVANTS   UNDER   THE   YOKE. 

freedom  by  the  divine  law,  and  knew  that  their  masters  also 
knew  it,  and  were  forbidden  of  God  to  treat  them  as  slaves, 
but  required  to  treat  them  as  brethren  ;  remembering  that 
the  same  Lord  was  their  Lord  and  Master,  and  no  respecter 
of  persons;  in  regard  to  this  class,  admitted  so  suddenly  into 
such  an  unaccustomed  liberty,  elevated  to  such  an  equality 
with  their  masters  in  Christ,  the  danger  was  of  being  puffed 
up  with  pride,  and  despising  their  masters,  instead  of  render- 
ing them  due  honor  and  obedience.  They  were,  therefore, 
cautioned  against  despising  their  masters,  because  they  were 
brethren,  and  being  such  were  deprived  by  the  law  of  God  of 
all  unrighteous  despotic  authority  over  them;  and  they  were 
warned  to  render  that  obedience  now  out  of  love,  which  be- 
fore, beneath  the  yoke  of  slavery,  they  had  been  compelled  to 
render  out  of  fear  and  by  compulsion.  They  must  now  be 
faithful  to  their  masters  as  to  Christ,  and  out  of  love  to  Christ, 
rendering  them  service  because  they  also  were  believers  in 
Jesus,  Christian  brethren,  partakers  of  his  love. 

The  servants  under  the  yoke  could  not  break  the  yoke,  but 
must  bear  it  patiently.  But  when  the  law  of  God  came  to 
the  conscience  of  the  master,  and  when  he  was  converted, 
then  came  the  conviction  of  the  criminality  of  slavery,  and  the 
command  to  break  every  yoke,  and  to  give  liberty,  every  man 
to  his  neighbor,  and  every  man  to  his  brother.  None  but 
heathen  masters  maintained  that  yoke.*  Christian  masters 

*  Compare  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  presented  by  the  apostle  as  synony- 

for  the  practical  proof  of  emancipa-  mous  with  being  under  the  yoke ;  the 

tion.  Also  the  testimonies  previously  having  a  Christian  master  is  synony- 

adduced.  ADAM  CLARKE  (Comm.  on  mous  with  being  freed  from  the  yoke. 

1  Tim.  vi.,  1)  remarks  that  "  the  word  "We  find  that  even  among  the 

6ovZoi  here  means  slaves  converted  slaves  there  were  Christian  converts, 

to  the  Christian  faith ;  and  the  fryov,  to  whom,  though  he  recommends  sub- 

or  yoke,  is  the  state  of  slavery ;  and  mission  and  contentment,  yet  he  inti- 

by  dean-oral,  masters  or  despots,  we  mates  that  if  they  could  get  their 

are  to  understand  the  heathen  masters  freedom,  they  should  prefer  it ;  and 

of  those  Christianized  slaves."  he  strongly  charges  those  that  were 

The  having  a  heathen  master  is  free  not  to  become  again  the  slaves 


SERVANTS   OF   CHRISTIAN   MASTERS.  423 

were  required  to  break  it,  and  it  would  seem  from  this  very 
text  that  they  did  break  it ;  for  this  is  the  very  point  of  con- 
trast between  believing  and  unbelieving  masters,  that  while 
the  latter  maintained  that  yoke  of  slavery,  by  the  former  it 
was  broken. 

The  servants  of  Christian  masters  were  no  longer  slaves,  but 
free  servants,  brethren  beloved  ;  and  Christian  masters  were 
no  longer  slaveholders,  but  forbidden  to  be  such,  and  required, 
as  in  the  case  of  Philemon,  to  regard  and  treat  their  servants 
no  longer  as  slaves,  but  above  that  condition,  as  brethren  in 
Christ,  and  not  slaves  at  all,  not  permitted  to  be  treated  as 
such  in  any  way.  The  law  of  God  forbids  it,  and  how  much 
more  the  gospel  of  Christ,  the  love  of  Christ,  in  addition  to 
that  law,  and  in  fulfillment  of  it. 

BLOOMFIELD  remarks  on  1  Tim.  vi.,  1,  that  "  it  was  obvious 
that  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  is  adverse  to  slavery.  Indeed, 
in  proportion  ns  its  injunctions  are  obeyed,  it  tends  to  root  out 
a  practice  in  which  folly  and  injustice  are  alike  conspicuous." 
This  admission  is  enough.  There  can  not,  by  any  possibility, 
be  any  precept  in  the  gospel  of  God  sanctioning  or  command- 
ing a  practice  which  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  condemns,  a  prac- 
tice conspicuous  for  folly  and  injustice,  and  known,  by  the 
testimony  of  the  gospel,  to  be  a  crime. 

Bloomfield  adds  that  "  it  was  natural  for  persons  so  ignorant 
as  slaves  to  regard  the  gospel  as  freeing  men  from  all  obliga- 
tions intrinsically  and  fundamentally  inconsistent  with  justice 
and  equity."  And  who  is  there,  with  a  right  knowledge  of 
the  law  of  God,  that  can  regard  the  gospel  in  any  other  way? 
No  enlightened  Christian  man  can  regard  as  obligatory  by 

of  men,  which,  in  a  Christian,  would  ter  of  what  color  or  complexion,  is  a 

be  a  disgrace   to  his  redemption  by  high   offense   against    the  holy   and 

Christ."  just  God,  and  a,  gross  and  unprinci- 

"  The  Christian  religion  does  not  pled  attack  on  the  liberty  and  rights 

abolish    our  civil    connections ;    but  of  our  fellow-creatures. — CLARKE  ou 

slavery,  and  all  buying  and  soiling  of  1  Cor.  vii.,  23. 
the  bodies  and  souls  of  men,  no  mat- 


424  SLAVERY  INHERENTLY   SINFUL. 

the  gospel  what  is  intrinsically  and  fundamentally  unjust.  It 
needed  not  the  ignorance  of  a  slave  to  regard  the  gospel  as 
freeing  men  from  such  obligations,  for  it  was  the  enlighten- 
ment of  every  Christian  to  know  that  what  is  in  itself  intrin- 
sically and  fundamentally  unjust  is  forbidden  by  the  gospel. 
If  slavery  is  "  intrinsically  and  fundamentally  inconsistent  with 
justice  and  equity,"  then  it  is  inherently  sinful,  sin  per  se,  and 
only  for  the  sake  of  honoring  Christ,  by  obedience  to  heathen 
masters,  was  the  relation  itself  to  be  endured  by  the  subject 
of  it,  and  then  only  in  such  things  as  were  not  unrighteous 
before  God.* 

Bloomfield  says,  on  Eph.  vi.,  5,  "  The  apostle  does  not  in- 
terfere with  any  established  relations,  however  morally  and 
politically  wrong,  as  in  the  case  of  slaves."  It  is  a  good  ad- 
mission, that  slavery  is  a  relation  morally  and  politically 
wrong.  But  that  admission  is  fatal  to  the  idea  that  the  apos- 
tle does  not  interfere.  The  gospel  is  in  every  part  an  inter- 
ference with  whatever  is  morally  wrong,  and  forbids  it.  If 
there  be  any  thing  contrary  to  sound  doctrine,  according  to 
the  gospel,  against  that,  says  the  apostle,  our  preaching  is  to 
be  directed.  It  being  admitted  that  the  relation  of  slavery 
is  morally  wrong,  it  is  morally  impossible  that  Christians 
should  be  permitted  to  sustain  that  relation.  It  is  morally 
certain  that  the  gospel  forbids  it,  and  that,  under  the  gospel, 

*  See  also  CALVIN,  comm.  on  Titus  ought  to  allow  us  to  be  silent,  ivhile 
ii.,  9.  He  restricts  the  duty  of  obe-  justice  is  violated  by  their  froward- 
dience  to  those  things  that  are  right  ness.  For  in  this  case  silence  is  a 
(quce  recta  sunt),  and  excepts  every  kind  of  consent." 
thing  that  is  not  according  to  the  will  Sea  also  NEANDER,  Church  Hist, 
of  God  (ne  quid  nisi  secundum  Deum).  Relation  of  Christianity  to  Govern- 
Also  CALVIN  on  Ex.  ii.,  14.  "  It  is  ment.  "  God  should  be  obeyed  rather 
the  common  duty  of  all  believers  than  man,  and  every  consideration, 
when  the  innocent  are  hnrsh'y  treated  even  of  property  and  life  itself;  should 
to  take  their  part,  and  as  far  as  pos-  be  disregarded,  in  all  cases  where  hu- 
sible  to  interpose,  lost  the  stronger  man  power  demanded  an  obedience 
should  prevail.  It  can  scarcely  be  contrary  to  the  laws  and  ordinances 
done  without  exasperating  those  who  of  God,"  vol.  i.,  p.  359. 
are  disposed  to  evil ;  but  nothing 


NEANDER    ON   THE   RELATION.  425 

no  person  can  rightfully  be  a  slaveholder.  The  relation  being 
admitted  to  be  morally  wrong,  it  is  morally  certain  that  the 
early  churches  could  not  have  permitted  slaveholdiug  in  their 
communion.  Hence  the  power  of  such  a  spontaneous  testi- 
mony as  that  of  Augustine,  against  treating  servants  as  things, 
as  property ;  and  that  of  Isidore,  that  he  did  not  suppose  that 
any  Christian  could  keep  a  slave. 

Neander  remarks  of  the  relation  of  slavery,  that  "  a  rela- 
tion must  necessarily  fall  of  itself  which  is  opposed  to  the 
Christian  universal  philanthropy,  and  to  the  ideas  spread  by 
Christianity  respecting  the  equal  destiny  and  dignity  of  all 
men,  as  created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  called  to  rule  over 
nature."* 

The  spirit  of  Christianity  never  could  abolish  that  which  the 
law  of  Christianity  established  as  just  and  right.  The  argu- 
ment is  absurd,  which  at  one  and  the  same  time  pretends  a 
sanction  of  slavery  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  then  claims  that 
if  it  be  let  alone,  if  there  be  no  agitation  or  disturbance,  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel  will  in  due  time  destroy  it.  If  it  be  sanc- 
tioned in  the  Word  of  God,  then  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  can 
not  be  against  it.  But  both  law  and  spirit  condemn  and  for- 
bid it.f 

The  laws  which  the  great  Deliverer  and  Redeemer  of  man- 
kind gave  for  the  government  of  his  kingdom  were  those  of 
universal  justice  and  benevolence,  and  as  such  were  subversive 
of  every  system  of  tyranny  and  oppression. J  "To  suppose, 
therefore,  as  has  been  rashly  asserted,  that  Jesus  or  his  apos- 
tles gave  their  sanction  to  the  existing  systems  of  slavery 
among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  is  to  dishonor  them.  That 
the  reciprocal  duties  of  masters  and  servants  (dovAot)  were  in- 

*  NEANDEB'S  Memorials  of  Chris-  ness  of  the  imprassion  that  slavery 

tian  Life,  p.  62.  finds  a  place  in  God's  Word. 

f  SAALSCIIUTZ,  Das  Mbsaische  Rechte,  \  See  the  admirable  -views  of  the 

vol.  ii.  This  German  writer  on  the  Christian  argument  in  DR.  ANDREW 

Mosaic  legislation  corrects  some  fun-  THOMSON'S  Sermon  and  Speeches) 

damental  errors,  and  shows  the  false-  page  7. 


426  EVIDENCE   FROM   TITUS. 

culcated,  admits,  indeed,  of  no  doubt.  But  the  performance 
of  these  duties  on  the  part  of  the  masters,  supposing  them  to 
have  been  slave-masters,  would  have  been  tantamount  to  the 
utter  subversion  of  the  relation.  The  character  of  the  existing 

O 

slavery  was  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  entire  tenor  of  the 
moral  and  humane  principles  of  the  precepts  of  Jesus."* 

But  no  matter  if  the  character  and  quality  of  that  slavery 
had  been  less  severe  ;  the  relation  itself  is  always  inconsistent 
with  Christianity.  Hence  the  righteous  testimony  of  one  of 
the  very  few  ecclesiastical  bodies  that  have  at  any  time  spoken 
authoritatively  and  plainly  against  this  sin,  "  the  United  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  North  America,"  against  the  sin  of  slave- 
holding,  as  "  a  disqualification  for  membership  in  the  church 
of  Christ."  "  It  is  the  relation  itself,  which  we  have  examined 
in  the  light  of  Scripture,  and  which  we  have  found  to  be  so 
inconsistent  with  it,  and  not  the  many  cruel  laws  which 
blacken  the  statute-books  of  the  slaveholding  States,  and  the 
many  gross  and  fearful  evils  that  result  from  this  relation."! 

"I  flatter  myself,"  said  the  eloquent  Dr.  Andrew  Thomson 
of  Edinburgh,  "  that  I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  those 
who  take  shelter  under  Christianity,  as  if  that  afforded  any 
countenance  to  the  slave  system,  are  either  ignorant  or  re- 
gardless of  that  revelation  of  Divine  mercy  ;  that  when  they 
appeal  to  the  Scriptures  as  sanctioning  what  they  are  so  un- 
willing to  renounce,  they  do  nothing  less  than  put  a  blas- 
phemous commentary  on  the  contents  of  that  sacred  vol- 
ume."! 

Titus  ii.,  9,  10.  "Exhort  servants (dovhovg)  to  be  obedient 
unto  their  own  masters,  and  to  please  them  well  in  all  things, 
not  answering  again,  not  purloining,  but  showing  all  good 
fidelity,  that  they  may  adorn  the  doctrine  of  God  our  Saviour 
in  all  things."  The  same  remarks  are  to  be  made  on  this 

*  WRIGHT,  Kitto's  Cyclop.  Art.  Slave. 

f  TESTIMONY  of  the  United  Presb.  Ch.  of  N.  Am.,  1858,  p.  31. 

j  AHDBEW  THOMSON,  Slavery  condemned  by  Christianity,  page  91. 


EVIDENCE    FROM   TITUS.  427 

passage  as  on  the  passages  in  Ephesians  and  Timothy,  contain- 
ing the  same  instructions.  They  are  suitable  for  all  time,  for 
all  generations,  for  all  possible  conditions  of  society,  to  the 
end  of  the  world  ;  for  there  is  no  intimation,  or  indication,  or 
sanction  of  slavery  in  them  ;  the  relation  of  masters  and  ser- 
vants being  intended  of  God  to  belong  to  free  Christian  soci- 
ety, as  long  as  the  world  stands,  but  of  masters  and  slaves, 
never ;  this  relation  being  forbidden,  not  only  in  the  original 
law  condemning  to  death  the  man  who  holds  his  fellow-man 
as  property,  but  also  in  the  command  to  masters  to  give  unto 
their  servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal. 

The  exhortations  to  servants  to  obey  their  masters  no  more 
intimate  that  it  was  right  for  those  masters  to  hold  them  as 
slaves,  than  the  command  to  love  your  enemy  intimates  that 
it  is  right  for  any  one  to  be  your  enemy,  or  than  the  command 
to  bless  them  that  curse  you,  and  do  good  to  those  that  per- 
secute you,  intimates  that  it  is  right  for  men  to  curse  you  and 
to  persecute  you.  It  might  as  soundly  and  properly  be  argued 
that  malignant  enemies  and  persecutors  of  Christians  may 
themselves  be  good  Christians-,  and  that  the  relation  of  a 
cruel  enemy  and  persecutor  to  the  victim  of  such  cruelty  was 
a  Christian  relation,  as  that  the  holders  of  Christians  as  prop- 
erty may  be  good  Christians,  or  the  relation  of  a  slaveholder 
to  the  slave-a  Christian  relation. 

The  old  Hebrew  law,  and  not  the  Roman  law,  or  the  Gre- 
cian law  and  custom  in  Crete  or  Athens,*  is  the  glass  through 
which  this  relation  must  be  viewed.  Viewed  thus,  it  is  in- 
stantly seen  to  be  criminal  before  God ;  it  is  seen  as  con- 
demned in  his  Word,  and  there  is  no  possibility  of  any  thing 
forbidden  in  the  moral  law  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  be- 
ing sanctioned  by  the  gospel  in  the  New.  God's  Word,  and 
not  the  custom  or  law  of  society,  is  the  tribunal  at  which 
every  custom  and  law  among  men  must  be  tried.  He  who 

*  THIRLWALL,  History  of  Greece,  Slavery  in  Crete,  ch.  7,  121,  and  in  Ath- 
ens, 187.  GROTS,  Hist.  Greece,  voL  iii.,  ch.  xL 


428 


SLAVERY   AGAINST   NATURE   AND   RELIGION. 


appealed  for  the  guide  and  sanction  of  his  own  life  to  the  Old 
Testament,  and  referred  to  that  supreme  rule  in  the  words, 
IT  is  WRITTEN,  never  could  have  sanctioned  in  custom  that 
which  God,  in  writing,  had  forbidden ;  and  that  God  had  for- 
bidden the  claim  of  property  in  man  is  indisputable.*  It  is 
that  claim,  and  the  application  of  it,  in  law  and  in  practice, 
that  constitutes  the  essence  of  slavery,  and  without  which 
slavery  could  not  exist.f 


*  BLACKSTONE,  Commentaries,  vol.i., 
B.  i.,  ch.  xiv.  Repugnancy  of  slavery 
to  reason  and  the  principles  of  natural 
law.  That  such  a  state  should  sub- 
sist anywhere,  he  says,  is  thus  repug- 
nant. And  all  the  three  origins  of  the 
pretended  right  of  slavery,  assigned  by 
Justinian,  lie  shows  to  be  false  and  in- 
iquitous, contrary  to  the  law  of  nature 
and  of  reason.  "  Upon  these  princi- 
ples the  law  of  England  abhors,  and 
will  not  endure  the  existence  of  slav- 
ery within  the  nation."  It  is  not  to 
be  endured  that  a  slaveholding  Chris- 
tianity should  set  revealed  religion 
against  the  natural  conscience  of  man- 
kind, or  by  a  false  interpretation  of 
the  gospel  set  that  against  the  law,  or 
by  perversion  of  both,  make  each  ap- 
pear contrary  both  to  God  and  nature. 


f  DR.  AOT>REW  THOMSON,  Sermon 
and  Speeches.  "  Shame  on  those  who 
have  so  far  taxed  their  ingenuity,  and 
so  far  consulted  their  selfishness,  and 
so  far  forgotten  their  Christian  name, 
as  to  apologize  for  the  existence  of 
slavery  by  extolling  the  incomparable 
superiority  of  spiritual  freedom,  and 
dragging  in  the  aid  and  countenance 
of  Scripture,  misstated  or  misunder" 
stood.  Slavery  1  the  tempter,  and  the 
murderer,  and  the  tomb  of  virtue  I  It 
must  be  put  an  end  to,  and  without 
delay,  for  every  day's  procrastination 
only  adds  to  the  guilt  of  those  who 
indulge  in  it,  and  sets  at  defiance  the 
very  first  principles  and  maxims  on 
which  a  true  Christian  feels  himself 
constrained  to  act."  (Pages  28  and 
40.) 


CHAPTER     XXXIX. 


EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  EPISTLE  OF  PAUL  TO  PHILEMON. — SUPPOSED  POSITION  AND  CHAR- 
ACTF.H  OF  PHILEMON  AND  ONESIMUS. — QUESTION  AS  TO  THE  FUGITIVE  HEBREW  LAW. — 
PAUL'S  PRACTICAL  ANSWER. — FACTS  FROM  THE  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  EPISTLE. — PREJU- 
DICES OF  THE  COMMENTATORS. — KEY  TO  TIIE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  EPISTLE.— ITS 
DEMONSTRATION  AGAINST  SLAVERY. 


"PAUL,  a  prisoner  of  Jesus  Christ,  unto  Philemon,  our 
fellow  laborer,  and  to  the  church  in  thy  house."  The  epistle 
was  written  during  Paul's  first  imprisonment  at  Rome,  and 
was  sent,  together  with  the  epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  Co- 
lossians,*  by  Tychicus  and  Onesimus,  about  the  ninth  year  of 
the  Emperor  N~ero,  or  63  of  our  Lord.f  Philemon's  residence 
was  in  Colosse,  as  appears  from  Col.  iv.,  9,  where  Onesimus, 
the  servant  of  Philemon,  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  Colossians. 
Theodoret  says  that  Philemon's  house  was  still  standing  in 
Colosse  in  his  time,  that  is,  in  the  commencement  of  the  fifth 
century.J  Grotius  supposed  that  Philemon  was  an  elder  in 
the  church  at  Ephesus.  Michaelis  regarded  him  as  a  deacon. 
Doddridge  supposes  him  to  have  been  one  of  the  pastors  of 
the  church  at  Colosse,  colleague  with  Archippus.§  Lardner 
thinks  it  not  certain  whether  he  were  an  elder  or  a  private 
Christian.  If  he  had  been  an  elder,  Lardner  thinks  he  must 
have  known  his  duty  better  than  to  have  needed  so  pressing 
an  exhortation  to  receive  a  Christian  brother. |  Paley  and 

*  PALEY,  Hor.  Paul.,  ch.  vi.     See  \  LARDXER,  Works,  vol.  vi.,  77. 

also  KITTO,  Cycl,  Art.  ONESIMUS.  §  DODDRIDGE,  Preface  to  PhiL  and 

f  But  LIGIITFOOT  supposes  the  year  Notes.     Fam.  Exp.,  948. 

60.     Works,  voL  iii.,  301.  |  LARDXER,  vol.  vi.,  78,  131. 


430  EPISTLE   TO   PHILEMON. 

Lardner  suppose  that  Paul  had  before  known  both  Philemon 
and  Onesimus.*  And  Beausobre  and  Lardner  supposed  that 
Onesiraus'  knowledge  of  Paul,  as  the  friend  of  Philemon,  in- 
duced him  to  visit  Paul  at  Rome. 

Paley  says  that  Onesimus  was  the  servant  or  slave  of  Phi- 
lemon. But  Paloy's  acute  observations  in  the  comparison  of 
the  epistles  to  the  Ephesians,  Colossians,  and  to  Philemon, 
make  it  plain  that  the  two  latter,  and,  perhaps,  all  three 
epistles,  may  have  been  intrusted  to  Tychicus  and  Onesimus 
in  one  and  the  same  commission ;  a  thing  not  very  likely  if 
Onesimus  Avas  coming  back  as  a  slave  to  Philemon,  to  be  his 
property  for  ever.f  The  supposition  has  been  almost  universal 
that  Onesimus  was  set  free  by  Philemon  ;  but,  in  fact,  Paul's 
own  epistle  is  a  rescript  for  the  freedom  of  Onesimus,  if  he 
had  ever  been  a  slave ;  and  the  very  commission  with  which 
he  was  immediately  entrusted  shows  that  he  was  considered 
as  free  by  Paul  and  Tychicus  and  the  Colossians.  When  Ig- 
natius wrote  his  epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  about  the  year  107, 
their  bishop's  name  was  Onesimus;  and  Grotius  concludes 
him  to  be  the  same  Onesimus  who  was  converted  and  sent 
back  by  Paul.  Lardner  thought  that  some  persons  might  be 
unwilling  to  admit  that  Philemon  himself  could  have  been  a 
bishop  or  elder  of  the  church,  "  because  he  was  a  man  of  sub- 
stance, who  had  one  slave  at  least,  or  more."J 

*  PALKY.     HOR^E  PAULINA,  229.  spring  \\jere  slaves,  following  the  con- 

\  POLI,    Synopsis,    vol.   v.,    1108.  dition  of  the  mother." 

"Returned  as  one  free;  not  as  was  \  LARDNER,  vol.  vi.,  78.    It  was  a 

customary  with    fugitives,    to    send  just  and  natural  conclusion,  a  Chris- 

them  back  bound,  or  under  a  keeper."  tian  conclusion.     But  the   argument 

Again,  "Nbn  ut  retractum,  exfuga,  out  is  equally  forcible  against  his  being  a 

remissum,  sed  aut  sponte  reversum,"  member  of  the  church,  and  still  main- 

of  his  own  accord  returning,  and  not  taining  the  claim  of  property  in  man. 

as  one  apprehended  in   flight.     Yet  The  laws  of  Christianity  forbade  that 

one  of  the  suppositions  made  by  this  claim  ;  and  if  those  laws  were  made 

commentator  concerning  Onesimus  is  known   by  the  apostles,   they  must 

that  "  he  may  have   been  a  natural  have  been  respected,  at  least  until  the 

brother  of  Philemon,  begotten  by  his  corruptions  of  Christianity  carried  away 

father  of  a  slave  girl,  for  such  off-  its  integrity  and  purity  as  with  a  flood. 


SUPPOSITIONS   AND   PREJUDICES.  431 

But  Macknight  supposes  that  Philemon,  on  the  contrary,  had 
a  number  of  slaves,  on  whom,  if  he  pardoned  Onesimus  too 
easily,  the  escape  from  punishment  for  running  away  would 
have  had  a  bad  effect.  And  the  methods  of  punishment  were 
notoriously  dreadful.  But  Macknight  conceives  that  Paul 
presented  to  Philemon  "  the  obligation  he  lay  under  to  him, 
for  having  made  his  unprofitable  slave  a  faithful  and  affection- 
ate servant  to  him  for  life.  By  telling  Philemon  that  he  would 
now  have  Onesimus  for  ever,  the  apostle  intimated  to  him  his 
firm  persuasion  that  Onesimus  would  never  any  more  run  away 
from  him."*  And  even  Doddridge  says,  "that  he  might  not 
only  be  dear  and  useful  to  thee  during  all  the  remainder  of 
his  life  as  a  servant,  whose  ear,  as  it  were,  is  bored  to  the  door 
of  thine  house  (to  allude  to  the  Hebrew  custom,  Ex.  xxi.,  6), 
but  a  source  of  eternal  delight,"  etc.  And  Hug  says,  "  that 
Paul  was  restoring  property  which  was  then  of  considerable 
value,  and  was,  moreover,  returning  it  to  its  owner  in  an  im- 
proved condition."!  And  Poole,  in  answer  to  the  question, 
Why  did  not  Paul  in  plain  terms  ask  Philemon  to  emancipate 
his  slave  ?  says,  "  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  too  costly  a  de- 
mand. For  slaves  were  very  useful  to  their  masters,  and 
made  a  good  part  of  their  possessions.'^ 

Such  are  some  of  the  preliminary  suppositions  and  prejudices 
with  Avhich  men  have  set  Paul  the  apostle  to  the  business  of 
writing  a  pro-slavery  document  to  comfort  a  rich  Christian 
slaveholder  with  the  assurance  that  his  property  in  human 
flesh  was  more  secure  than  ever.  Had  this  Epistle  been  ren- 
dered through  the  eye  of  the  Old  Testament,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  which  it  was  written,  very  different  conclusions  would 
have  been  drawn  from  it.  Let  us  examine  the  proof. 

Verses  8-21.  "Wherefore,  though  I  might  be  much  bold 
in  Christ  to  enjoin  thee  that  which  is  convenient,  (9.)  yet  for 

*  MACKNIGHT,  Apostolical  Epistles,  498. 

f  HUG'S  Introd.  to  the  N.  T. ;  Ep.  to  Phil.,  555. 

j  POLI,  Synop.,  voL  v. 


432  LAWS    OF   BOME   AND   GOD. 

love's  sake  I  rather  beseech  thee,  being  such  an  one  as  Paul 
the  aged,  and  now  also  a  prisoner  of  Jesus  Christ.  (10.)  I  be- 
seech thee,  for  my  son  Onesimus,  whom  I  have  begotten  in 
my  bonds ;  (11.)  which  in  time  past  was  to  thee  unprofitable, 
but  now  profitable  to  thee  and  to  me;  (12.)  whom  I  have 
sent  again  ;  thou,  therefore,  receive  him ;  that  is,  mine  own 
bowels.  (13.)  Whom  I  would  have  retained  with  me,  that  in 
thy  stead  he  might  have  ministered  unto  me  in  the  bonds  of 
the  gospel ;  (14.)  but  without  thy  mind  would  I  do  nothing, 
that  thy  benefit  should  not  be  as  it  were  of  necessity,  but 
willingly.  (15.)  For  perhaps  he  therefore  departed  for  a  sea- 
son, that  thou  shouldst  receive  him  forever.  (16.)  NOT  NOW 
AS  A  SERVANT,  but  above  a  servant,  a  brother  beloved,  espe- 
cially to  me,  but  how  much  more  unto  thee,  BOTH  IN  THE 
FLESH  AND  IN  THE  LOUD,  (l  7.)  If  thou  count  me,  therefore, 
a  partner,  receive  him  as  myself.  (18.)  If  he  hath  wronged 
thee,  or  oweth  thee  aught,  put  that  on  mine  account.  (19.)  I, 
Paul,  have  written  it  with  mine  own  hand,  I  will  repay  it ; 
albeit  I  do  not  say  to  thee  how  thou  owest  unto  me  even 
thine  own  self  besides.  (20.)  Yea,  brother,  let  me  have  joy 
of  thee  in  the  Lord;  refresh  my  bowels  in  the  Lord.  (21.) 
Having  confidence  in  thy  obedience,  I  wrote  unto  thee,  know- 
ing that  thou  wilt  also  do  more  than  I  say." 

Of  this  it  is  to  be  noted  that  it  is  the  conclusion  and  climax 
of  all  Paul's  instructions  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  It  might 
have  been  asked  by  the  disciples,  to  whom  any  of  his  Epistles 
had  come,  referring  to  the  treatment  of  servants,  "  But  what 
are  we  to  do,  under  the  Roman  empire,  with  the  laws  of  God 
in  regard  to  fugitives  ?*  We  are  told  that  if  the  slave  may 

*  JOSEPHTJS,  Book  6,  chap,  vi.,  Jud.  of  God  against  MEN-STEALERS,  mur- 

Bell. — Laws  of  the  Jews.    That  these  derers,   and    dealers    of  themselves 

laws  were  still  of  force,  Paul  himself  with  mankind  were   not  abrogated, 

teaches  hi  1  Tun.  i.,  9,  by  his  refer-  nei  ther  were  those  against  the  betray- 

ence  to  the  whole  body  of  moral  pre-  ers  of  fugitives  ;  if  the  av6pairo6iaraL 

cepts  and  forbiddings,  and  his  instruc-  were  objects  of  the  divine  reprobation, 

tions  to  have  them  enjoined  in  the  so  were  the  fugitivarii,  the  man-hunt- 

preaching  of  the  gospeL    If  the  laws  er3,   the    avdpanvvayoi.      JOSEPHUS, 


CONCLUSION   FROM  PAUL'S   ACTION. 


433 


be  made  free,  he  is  to  use  it  rather,  and  that  we  must  not  be 
the  slaves  of  men.  But  now  suppose  he  runs  away,  what  are 
we  Christians  to  do  with  him  ? 

The  answer  of  Paul  says,  practically,  in  this  Epistle, 

1.  You  are  to  shelter  him,  and  not  to  oppress  him. 

2.  On  no  account  give  any  notice  of  him,  nor  betray  the 
wanderer,  but  he  shall  abide  with  thee,  in  one  of  thy  gates,  in 
that  place  where  it  liketh  him  best.* 

3.  Instruct  him  in  the  gospel,  and  by  the  grace  of  God  con- 
vert him  to  Christ. 

4.  If  he  have  had  a  Christian  master,  and  you  are  confident 
in  that  master's  piety  and  benevolence,  then  you  may  give  no- 
tice to  such  a  master  (and  send  your  letter  or  message  by  the 
fugitive  himself)  that  you  have  sent  him  back  to  be  emanci- 


referring  to  the  fact  of  the  Jewish 
laws  being  acknowledged,  records  a 
speech  of  Titus  to  the  Jews,  noting 
the  liberality  of  the  Romans  in  this 
respect.  "  We  have  preserved  to  you 
the  laws  of  your  forefathers,  and  per- 
mitted you  to  live  as  it  should  please 
you,  by  yourselves  or  with  others, 
permitted  you  also  to  collect  your  sa- 
cred tribute." 

Now  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
the  laws  contained  in  the  books  of 
Exodus  or  Deuteronomy,  or  in  the 
twenty-first  and  twenty-third  chapters 
of  those  books,  were  considered  as 
abrogated,  while  those  of  Leviticus 
were  enforced;  or  that,  while  the 
laws  against  perjurers  were  binding, 
those  agafast  delivering  up  the  fugi- 
tive, those  protecting  the  fugitive 
from  oppression  and  securing  his  free- 
dom, were  of  none  effect.  The  laws 
of  Rome  can  not  bo  proved  to  have 
been  considered  by  Paul  and  his  fel- 
low Christians  as  more  binding  than 
the  laws  of  God. 


*  JOSEPHUS,  Antiq.,  B.  xv.,  ch.  9. 
Josephus  remarks  concerning  Herod, 
that  "  the  liberality  and  submissive 
behavior  which  he  exercised  toward 
Caesar  and  the  most  powerful  men  of 
Rome,  obliged  him  to  transgress  the 
customs  of  his  nation,  and  to  set  aside 
many  of  their  laws." 

Suppose  such  a  testimony  as  this  to 
have  been  given  respecting  Paul,  that 
judging  himself  brought  under  Roman 
law,  and  obliged  to  cultivate  the  favor 
of  the  court,  and  to  avoid  giving  of- 
fense, ho  had  been  compelled  in  some 
things  to  set  aside  and  transgress  the 
law  of  God,  though  he  had  command- 
ed Timothy  to  preach  it !  The  suppo- 
sition is  shameful.  Yet  such,  in  fact, 
is  the  course  of  conduct  attributed  to 
him,  in  supposing  that  out  of  regard  to 
the  Roman  law  he  would  set  at 
nought  the  Divine  law,  and  at  the 
command  of  Cassar  return  into  slavery 
a  fugitive  whom  God  had  commanded 
him  to  protect. 


19 


434  PAUL'S   EIGHT  TO    OXESIMUS. 

pated  ;  that  by  the  law  of  God  his  master  is  bound  to  receive 
him,  and  treat  him  as  a  brother,  but  no  longer  as  a  slave  ;  that 
in  every  respect,  just  as  Paul  would  have  a  right  to  be 
treated  as  a  freeman,  just  so  has  he.  You  are  to  commit  the 
fugitive  to  his  own  care,  and  not  to  denounce  him  to  the  au- 
thorities, nor  commit  him  to  the  keeping  of  any  marshal.  He 
is  not  to  be  rendered  up  as  if  he  were  a  prisoner,  or  had  com- 
mitted an  offense,  but  is  to  be  intrusted,  as  a  Christian  brother, 
and  a  freeman,  with  the  letter  missive,  demanding  his  free  papers. 
These  things  are  clear  from  the  analysis  of  this  Epistle. 
Some  other  things  are  equally  clear. 

1.  From  verses  8-10,  the  assertion  is  clear  that  Paul  could 
of  right,  in  Christ's  name,  enjoin  upon  Philemon  by  command- 
ment the  freedom  and  brotherly  kindness  which,  for  love's 
sake,  he  asks  for  Onesimus. 

2.  From  verse  11  the  conclusion  is  clear  that  slavery  is  un- 
profitable, while  freedom  and  piety  are  profitable. 

3.  From  verses  11,  15,  16,  the  conclusion  is  manifest  that 
freedom,  and  not  slavery,  is  the  cause  of  piety ;  that  not 
slavery,  but  the  escape  from  it,  and  the  hearing  of  the  gospel 
in  freedom,  is  the  true  missionary  institute,  attended  with 
converting  grace.     If  Onesimus  had  remained  with  Philemon, 
and  been  treated  as  a  slave,  there  is  no  proof  that  he  would 
ever  have  been  converted.     He  is  said  to  have  "  departed" 
from  Philemon,  and  getting  to  Rome  he  met  with  Paul,  and 
being  affectionately  received  and  protected  by  him,  he  opened 
his  heart  to  him,  and  was  converted. 

4.  From  verse  13  it  is  evident  that  Paul  held  that  he  had  a 
right  to  have  retained  Onesimus,  if  Onesimus  chose  to  be  in 
his  service,  and  that  he  was  not  bound  by  any  pretencted  right 
of  Philemon  in  him  as  property,  or  in  his  services,  against  his 
own  will.     "  Whom  I  would  have  retained  with  me,  that  in 
thy  stead  he  might  have  ministered  unto  me  in  the  bonds  of 
the  gospel."     If  Onesimus  had  been  considered  as  Philemon's 
property,  then  the  very  design  of  retaining  him,  without  buying 


PAUL'S   VIEW   OF   PROVIDENCE.  435 

him,  as  well  as  the  having  kept  him  so  long,  without  any  no- 
tice to  Philemon,  would  have  been  a  dishonesty  ;  just  as  much 
as  if  Paul  had  found  a  note  of  a  thousand  denarii  belonging 
to  Philemon,  and  had  kept  it  a  considerable  time,  and  had 
then  sent  word  to  Philemon  that  he  would  have  kept  it  alto- 
gether, but  preferred  on  the  whole  that  Philemon  should 
have  the  opportunity  of  giving  it  of  his  own.  accord. 

"  But  without  thy  mind,"  Paul  says,  "  I  would  do  nothing  ;" 
not  because  he  intimates  that  that  would  have  been  wrong,  in 
retaining  Onesimus;  but  that  it  would  have  deprived  Phile- 
mon of  the  privilege  of  doing  of  his  own  accord  what  Paul 
could  have  justly  required  of  him ;  "  that  thy  benefit  should 
not  be  of  necessity,  but  as  it  were  willingly."  Thy  benefit, 
rb  dyadov  oov,  thy  privilege  of  conferring  the  benefit,  thy 
good  deed,  thy  benefit  both  to  Onesimus,  and  to  Paul  through 
him,  and  thus  also  a  benefit  to  Philemon  himself;  thy  benefit 
in  conferring  a  benefit.* 

5.  He   gives   Philemon   the   privilege   of  consenting   that 
Onesimus  should  become  a  helper  of  Paul  in  the  gospel.     It 
was  not,  as  some  have  intimated,  as  a  personal  servant,  that 
Paul  would  have  retained  him,  but  as  a  minister  unto  him,  in 
and  of  the  gospel,  as  Philemon  himself,  or  Tychicus,  or  Timo- 
thy might  have  been.     But  he  gives  Philemon  the  privilege 
of  relinquishing  all  his  former  claims  upon  him  for  service,  and 
of  yielding  him  up  spontaneously,  at  the  claim  of  duty  and  of 
Christ's  love,  for  Christ's  service. 

6.  In  verse  15  Paul  intimates  that  it  was  by  the  Divine 
Providence  that  Onesimus  "  departed  from  him,"  for  a  sea- 
son, on  purpose  that,  being  converted  during  his  absence,  he 
might  be  received  back  in  the  eternal  relation  of  a  Christian 
brother,  but  no  longer  as  a  slave.    Paul  does  not  intimate 
that  Philemon  ran  away,  or  that  he  was  guilty  of  any  crime 
in  so  doing,  if  he  did  run  away,  but  uses  concerning  his  de 

*  See  ROBINSON'S  Lex.  K  T.  on  the  word,  BLOOJIFIELD,  in  loc.,  WHITBY  on 
the  same,  CALVIN,  in  Epist.  v.,  14,  DODDRIDGE  on  the  same,  POOLE,  Annot. 


436  NO   MOKE   AS   A   SEE V ANT. 

parture  the  same  language  (e%«pw07/)  as  is  used  in  Acts  i.,  iv., 
and  xviii.,  12,  of  the  departure  of  the  disciples  and  of  Paul 
from  Jerusalem  and  Athens,  and  Romans  viii.,  35,  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?  It  is  inconceivable,  if 
Onesimus  was  the  property  of  Philemon  (and  if  so,  then  the 
most  sacred  of  all  property),  and  had  stolen  himself  out  of 
Philemon's  power,  committing  thus  the  crime  of  man-stealing, 
that  Paul  should  not  so  much  as  hint  at  any  thing  criminal  or 
wrong  in  this  action,  but  should  leave  it  to  be  considered  an 
innocent  departure.  The  commentators  call  it  a  euphemism  • 
but  Paul  was  not  wont  thus  to  conceal  a  great  crime  under 
soft  and  flattering  language.  Had  it  been  a  crime  in  Onesi- 
mus to  depart  from  Philemon,  Paul  would  have  stated  it. 

7.  Some  other  things  he  does  distinctly  state,  namely,  that 
Onesimus  is  to  be  received  back,  not  now  as  a  servant,  OVKKTI 
cjg  dovXov,  no  more  as  a  servant,  or  slave  (see  ROBINSOX,  Lex., 
ovKen,  no  more,  no  further,  no  longer),  distinctly,  not  again  as 
a  slave,  no  more  a  slave,  but  above  a  slave,  a  brother  beloved. 
If  Paul  sought  to  express  as  clearly  as  possible  the  fact  that 
Philemon  was  to  be  free,  was  no  more  to  be  a  slave,  could  no 
longer  be  held  as  such  (even  if  he  had  been  before),  he  could 
not  have  used  more  pointed  language.     The  thing  is  as  posi- 
tive as  words  can  make  it,  no  longer  as  a  slave.    It  is  an  ex- 
ample of  the  impossibility  of  a  Christian  being  a  slaveholder, 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  fugitives  from  slavery  were  always 
to  be  treated  by  Christians,  as  brethren,  and  not  as  slaves. 

8.  To  prevent  all  possibility  of  doubt,  to  cut  off"  all  oppor- 
tunity of  evasion  by  resorting  to  the  pretense  that  this  free- 
dom was  merely  Christian  freedom  in  the  Lord,  or  the  privi- 
lege of  being  beloved  as  a  brother  in  Christ,  notwithstanding 
the  continuance  of  slavery,  it  is  distinctly  added  and  declared 
that  Onesimus  is  to  be  received  by  Philemon  not  merely  as  by 
Paul,  in  the  character  of  a  brother  beloved  in  Christ,  but  as  a 
brother  also  in  the  flesh;  not  as  a  servant,  but  above  a  ser- 
vant, a  brother  beloved,  BOTH  IN  THE  FLESH  and  in  the  Lord. 


A   BROTHER   BELOVED.  437 

This  can  have  no  other  meaning  than  that  Onesimus  could 
no  longer  sustain  the  relation  of  a  slave  to  Philemon  in  the 
flesh  any  more  than  in  the  Lord,  but  was  a  brother  in  both 
senses,  so  that  he  could  not  be  a  slave,  nor  could  Philemon  as 
a  Christian  hold  him  as  such  any  more  than  he  could  have 
been  supposed  to  hold  his  own  brother  as  property,  or  use 
him  as  merchandise. 

9.  To  all  this  is  added  another  requisition  and  characteristic 
of  perfect  equality  and  freedom,  "If  thou  count  me  a  partner 
(KOLVUVOV')  receive  him  as  myself."     For  the  meaning  of  this, 
compare  2  Cor.  viii.,  23.     "  Whether  any  do  inquire  of  Titus, 
he  is  my  partner  and  fellow-helper."    Also  Luke  v.,  10.  "The 
sons  of  Zebedee,  partners  with  Simon."     Make  a  common 
friend  and  partner  of  both  of  us,  him  as  myself.  (See  Robinson 
on  the  word  and  its  cognates,  in  Lex.  of  N.  T.) 

10.  "If  he  hath  wronged  thee,  or  oweth  thee  aught,  put 
that  on  mine  account."     It  is  not  here  asserted  that  Onesimus 
had  wronged  Philemon.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  very  clearly 
intimated  (as  well  as  in  verse  15)  that  his  departure  was  not  a 
wrong ;  had  that  been  a  wrong,  it  would  have  been  (if  Onesi- 
mus were  of  right  a  slave)  the  highest  kind  of  robbery,  and 
Paul  could  not  have  questioned  it.    What  an  insult  it  would 
have  been  to  send  back  Onesimus  as  a  criminal,  guilty  of  such 
robbery,  and  at  the  same  time  coolly  to  write  concerning  him 
to  his  owner,  If  he  hath  wronged  thee,  charge  it  to  me !     If, 
according  to  the  interpolations  of  some  paraphrasts,  Onesimus 
had  been  the  property  of  Philemon,  and  the  value  of  that 
property  had  been  greatly  increased  by  his  contusion  (the 
presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  him  constituting  him  a  much 
more  precious  piece  of  property  than  he  was  before,  which  is 
the  hideous  sense  that  some  commentators  put  upon  the  llth 
verse),  then  the  proposition  of  Paul  to  set  Onesimus  free 
would  have  been  just  a  demand  upon  Philemon  for  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  considerable  sum  of  money ;  and  on  the  same  princi- 
ples of  generosity  and  justice  on  which  Paul  offers  to  pay  any 


438  ONESIMUS   AXD   TYCHICUS. 

thing  that  Onesimus  might  be  owing  to  Philemon,  Paul  must 
also  have  offered  to  purchase  Onesimus^  and  pay  for  him.  To 
demand  that  Philemon  should  give  him  to  Paul,  and  then  for 
Paul  to  offer  to  pay  a  few  pitiful  debts  that  Onesimus  was 
owing  to  Philemon,  would  be  somewhat  like  asking  a  man  to 
give  you  five  hundred  dollars,  and  then  offering  to  settle  for 
him  a  neglected  bill  of  his  last  year's  water-tax. 

11.  There  is  no  intimation  of  Onesimus  having  robbed  Phi- 
lemon, and  fled  from  him  as  a  thief.      Such  suppositions  and 
assertions  are  gratuitous  and  unfounded,  as  Bloomfield,  Mac- 
knight  and  others  have  noted.    There  is  not  the  slightest  inti- 
mation iu  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians,  where  Onesimus  is 
mentioned,  of  any  allegation  against  him,  nor  of  his  being  a 
slave,  any  more  than  Tychicus  ;  but  he  is  mentioned  as  a  faith- 
ful and  beloved  brother,  along  with  Aristarchus,  Marcus,  Jus- 
tus, Epaphras,  "  who  is  one  of  you"  (the  very  same  words  used 
in  regard  to  Onesimus),  in  the  same  epistle  in  which  it  is  de- 
clared that  in  the  church  there  is  neither  distinction  of  Greek 
nor  Jew,  bond  nor  free,  and  in  which  masters  are  commanded 
to  give  unto  their  servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal.     One- 
simus is  no  more  considered  a  slave  than  Epaphras. 

12,  Paul's  confidence  in  Philemon's  obedience  is  to  be  noted. 
The  command  was,  as  well  as  request,  to  receive  Onesimus, 
not  as  a  servant,  but  as  a  brother.     Paul  had  no  right  to  com- 
mand Philemon  to  do  any  thing  but  what  the  law  of  God  and 
the  gospel  of  Christ  enjoined  upon  him.    But  in  this  he  makes 
no  question  of  his  obedience.      The  dignity  of  his  authority 
in  Christ  is  thus  united  with  the  persuasive  tenderness  and 
courtesy  of  Christian  love.*      That  Onesimus  was  considered 
by  Paul  as  free  is  plain  from  his  being  intrusted,  along  with 
Tychicus  (both  mentioned  by  name  in  Col.  iv.,  7,  9),  with  the 
apostle's  letter  and  messages  to  the  saints  and  faithful  brethren 
in  Colosse.      No  difference  whatever  is  put  by  Paul  between 
Onesimus  and  Tychicus.      They  are  both  called  faithful  and 

*  This  point  is  noted  by  PALEY,  in  Horss  Paulinas,  with  emphasis. 


ABSURDITIES   IMPUTED   TO   PAUL.  439 

beloved  brethren,  and  it  is  added,  "They  shall  make  known 
unto  yon  all  things  which  are  done  here." 

At  the  same  time  Onesimus  was  intrusted  with  the  epistle 
to  Philemon,  and  he  must  have  known  its  contents,  and  the 
conditions  on  which,  with  his  own  consent,  Paul  was  sending 
him  on  this  mission.  He  was  free  ;  nor  could  Philemon  have 
retained  him  as  a  servant,  except  with  his  own  and  Paul's  con 
sent ;  as  a  slave  he  could  not  have  received  him  at  all,  but  was 
forbidden  from  maintaining  any  such  claim  or  relation,  not 
only  by  the  present  epistle,  but  by  the  principle  laid  down  in 
that  to  the  Colossians,  iv.,  1,  Masters,  give  unto  your  ser- 
vants that  which  is  just  and  equal.  If,  as  a  slave,  Paul  was 
sending  back  Onesimus,  and  if,  as  a  slave,  Philemon  was  to 
receive  him,  greatly  increased  in  value,  and  bound  to  him  for 
ever  as  his  property,  then  the  idea  of  Paul  writing  a  letter  to 
Philemon,  humbly  and  affectionately  beseeching  him  to  do 
this  for  Christ's  sake  and  for  love's  sake,  is  one  of  the  great- 
est absurdities  that  could  be  imagined. 

For,  consider  the  case  of  a  slave  worth  a  thousand  or  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  having  escaped  from  a  plantation  at  the  South, 
and  becoming  a  Christian  at  the  North,  his  value  being  thus  in- 
creased, say  five  hundred  dollars,  would  any  pious  slave-catcher 
think  it  necessary,  would  the  minister  of  religion,  under  whose 
instructions  the  slave  was  converted,  think  it  necessary  to  write 
a  humble,  beseeching  letter,  entreating  him,  for  Christ's  sake,  to 
receive  back  the  fugitive  as  part  of  his  plantation  stock,  and  per- 
mit him  to  work  for  him  without  wages  as  his  property?  Mean- 
time the  master  has  offered  publicly  a  hundred  dollars  reward 
or  more  to  any  who  would  aid  him  in  recovering  his  valuable 
property.  How  does  the  system  work  where  we  see  it  in  prac- 
tice ?  Do  slave-catchers  have  to  entreat  the  masters  for  the 
sake  of  Christ  to  condescend  to  receive  back  their  valuable 
chattels  ?  It  is  ordinarily  the  case  that  they  are  glad  enough  to 
get  them,  though  at  the  cost  of  great  toil,  expense  and  agitation. 

It  is  not  to  be  endured  that  such  absurdities  should  be 


440  PAGAN   INTERPRETATIONS. 

fastened  upon  an  inspired  epistle,  or  that  conduct,  sentiments 
and  arguments  should  be  imputed  to  Paul,  such  as  would  dis- 
grace an  intelligent  heathen.  Yet,  so  ingrained  has  the  com- 
mon mind  been  with  the  supposition  of  the  rightfulness  of 
slavery,  the  moral  sense  so  poisoned,  so  drugged  with  the  idea 
of  slavery  being  a  system  sanctioned  of  God,  and  through  this 
incarnation  of  iniquity  in  the  conscience  so  deadened  to  the 
shame  of  such  sentiments  imputed  to  the  inspired  writers,  that 
even  Conybeare  and  Howson  have  translated  Paul's  words 
(rendered  in  our  translation,  that  thou  shouldst  receive  him 
for  ever)  by  the  phrase,  "  that  thou  mightest  POSSESS  him  for 
ever,"  and  in  the  phrase  following,  they  have  interpolated  the 
words  "  being  thine"  (not  in  the  original),  and  instead  of  our 
common  translation,  which  is  "  a  brother  beloved,  especially 
to  me,  but  how  much  more  unto  thee,  both  in  the  flesh  and  in 
the  Lord,"  they  have  added  in  the  translation  "  being  thine^ 
both  in  the  flesh  and  in  the  Lord." 

But  these  writers  have  also  translated  Paul,  in  1  Cor.  vii., 
21,  as  enjoining  Christians  to  prefer  slavery  to  freedom,  even 
if  they  could  have  their  choice  !  Not  a  few  of  the  commen- 
tators have,  in  respect  to  this  subject,  taken  their  stand  point 
in  the  lowest  level  of  Paganism,  and  have  attempted  to  draw 
Christianity  down  upon  that  platform.  Instead  of  consulting 
the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  and  interpreting  the  New  ac- 
cordingly, disclosing  the  elevation  of  Judean  and  Christian 
society,  produced  by  the  Scriptures,  and  the  divine  spirit  in 
them,  above  that  of  the  whole  world  besides,  they  have 
adopted  one  of  the  worst  vices  of  Pagan  civilization  as  sanc- 
tioned of  God,  and  then  have  put  the  interpretation  of  the 
gospels  and  epistles  to  the  torture,  in  order  to  accommodate 
the  Christian  Scriptures  to  that  sanction.  We  might  have 
said  the  worst  vices  of  a  Pagan  barbarism;  for  what  can  be 
worse,  what  more  diabolical  on  earth,  than  the  system  of 
slavery  known  to  have  come  to  its  perfection  in  Greece  and 
Rome,  to  which  these  interpreters  would  affix  the  seal  and 


PAGAN   INTERPRETATIONS.  441 

authority  of  divine  inspiration  ?  They  have  carried  the  very 
words  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  be  stamped  by  the  depravities  of 
the  Pagan  world,  and  then  circulated  them,  under  such  an 
image  and  superscription,  as  the  exponents  of  Christianity. 

A  consultation  of  some  who  have  written  on  this  epistle 
will  give  a  vivid  idea  of  the  deadening  and  debasing  power 
of  slavery  over  the  conscience  and  mind,  wherever  this  wick- 
edness is  defended  or  excused  as  right,  and  maintained  as 
consistent  with  the  gospel.  The  distortion  and  degradation 
of  the  moral  sense  are  incredible.  But  nothing  in  this  line 
could  surprise  us  from  writers  who  could  paraphrase  the  fifth 
verse  of  the  sixth  chapter  of  Ephesians  thus  :  "As  the  gospel 
does  not  cancel  the  civil  rights  of  mankind,  I  say  to  bond- 
servants, obey  your  masters,  WHO  HAVE  THE  PROPERTY  OP 
YOUR  BODY,  with  fear  and  trembling,  as  liable  to  be  punished 
by  them  for  disobedience."*  And  yet,  the  very  same  com- 
mentator adds  a  note  on  the  word  man-stealers  thus  :  "  They 
who  make  war  for  the  inhuman  purpose  of  selling  the  van- 
quished as  slaves,  as  is  the  practice  of  the  African  princes,  are 
really  man-stealers.  And  they  who,  like  the  African  traders, 
encourage  that  unchristian  traffic,  by  purchasing  the  slaves 
whom  they  know  to  be  thus  unjustly  acquired,  are  partakers 
in  their  crime."f  But  how  can  slaves  be  ever  acquired  in  any 
other  way  than  unjustly  ?  The  purchase  of  slaves  acquired 
in  war  is  perhaps  the  least  iniquitous  mode  of  man-stealing ; 
but  if  the  traffic  be  unchristian,  it  can  be  so  only  on  the 
ground  of  the  fact  both  of  natural  justice  and  divine  revela- 

*  MACKNIGHT,  Apostolical  Epistles,  "  if  any  one  teach  that  under  the  gos- 

Eph.,  ch.  vu  pel  slaves  ought  to  be  made  free,  he 

f  MACKOTGHT  on  1  Timothy  i.,  10.  is  puffed  up  with  pride,  knowing  noth- 
And  yet,  on  chapter  vi,  Macknight  ing."  He  renders  verse  6,  "  But  god- 
reasons  as  if  slaveholding  was  a  right,  liness  with  a  competency  is  great 
to  which  masters  are  entitled  by  the  gain ;"  and  according  to  the  scope  of 
law  of  nature,  or  the  law  of  the  coun-  this  reasoning,  the  paraphrase  would 
try,  which  the  Christian  religion  of  rightly  add  that  a  certain  number  of 
course  confirms !  And  a  part  of  his  slaves  is  the  divine  idea  of  a  Christian 
paraphrase  of  the  tliird  verse  is,  that  competency. 
19* 


442  PROTECTION   OF   FUGITIVES. 

tion,  that  human  beings  can  not  be  property,  and  that  tho 
treatment  of  them  as  such  is  a  crime  in  God's  sight,  and  by 
God's  law  worthy  of  death.* 

The  KEY  TO  THIS  EPISTLE  is  in  the  grand  OLD  HEBREW  FU- 
GITIVE LAW  in  Deut.  xxiii.,  15, 16.  "  THOU  SHALT  NOT  DELIVER 

UNTO  HIS  MASTER  THE  SERVANT  WHICH    IS    ESCAPED    FROM    HIS 

MASTER  UNTO  THEE."  Nearly  all  the  commentators  have  neg- 
lected this  law,  have  refrained  from  referring  to  it,  and  h  avo 
sought  to  break  open  the  epistle  without  using  the  key,  or 
with  false  keys  modeled  by  the  slave  power,  so  that  they 
could  rifle  its  contents  by  their  own  private  interpretation  for 
the  sanction  of  slavery.  Some  have  done  this  ignorantly,  in 
unbelief;  others  are  still  doing  it,  in  the  bold  avowal  of  the 
opinion  that  slavery  is  an  institution  of  God,  and  that  any 
shelter  given  to  a  fugitive  slave  is  a  violation  of  that  religion 
and  law  which  says,  "  Betray  not  the  fugitive  ;  take  away 
from  the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke  ;  give  liberty  every  man  to  his 
brother  and  every  one  to  his  neighbor."  Not  in  the  law  only, 
but  in  the  prophets  ;  not  in  Deuteronomy  only,  but  in  Isaiah 
and  Jeremiah  and  the  Psalms,  Paul's  favorite  books  of  con- 
sultation and  of  study,  he  would  find  such  passages  as  the 
following,  in  connection  with  the  statutes  against  holding  and 
treating  human  beings  as  merchandise,  and  against  oppressing 
and  defrauding  them:  "Take  counsel;  execute  judgment ; 
make  thy  shadow  as  the  night  in  the  midst  of  the  noonday  ; 
hide  the  outcasts ;  betray  not  him  that  wandereth.  Let  mine 
outcasts  dwell  with  thee  ;  be  thou  a  covert  to  them  from  the 

*  BLACKSTONE  on  the   Rights  of  "  Political  freedom  was  a  great  bless 

Persons,  B.  i.,  ch.  xiv.     Also,  Intro-  ing ;  but  compared  with  personal,   it 

duction,  Law  of  Nature  and  of  Revela-  sunk  to  nothing.     Personal  freedom 

tion,  sec.  2.    See  also  TUCKER'S  Light  was  the   first  right  of  every  human 

of  Nature,  and   COLERIDGE  on   Self-  being.     It  was  a  right  of  which  he 

Evident  Truths,  and  the  necessity  of  who  deprived  his  fellow  creature  waa 

their  repromulgation.     THE  FIUEXD,  absolutely  criminal  in  so   depriving 

Essay  8.     Also,  HUMBOLDT,  Cosmos,  him,  and  which  he  who  withheld  waa 

voL  ii.,  567,  568,  and  vol.  i,  368.  Also,  no  less  criminal  in  withholding.1' 
Speeches  of  Fox  and  WILBERFORCE. 


CAKICATUBE   OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  443 

face  of  the  spoiler  ;  for  the  extortioner  is  at  an  end,  the  spoiler 
%ceaseth,  the  oppressors  are  consumed  out  of  the  land,  and  in 
mercy  shall  the  throne  be  established."* 

Paul  could  not  pass  by"  such  passages,  nor  ignore,  nor  misin- 
terpret God's  laws  against  every  form  of  man-stealing,  though 
some  of  his  interpreters  can.  It  is  a  singular  example  of 
blindness  and  perversion,  when  the  light  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  carefully  excluded  from  an  epistle  in  the  New.  In  every 
other  case  of  examination  of  the  meaning  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, wherever  there  is  any  reference  in  the  subject  or  the 
language  to  any  Old  Testament  passage,  the  commentators 
have,  of  course,  referred  back  to  it.  But  in  this  very  plain 
case  of  the  epistle  to  Philemon  as  connected  with  the  law  in 
Deuteronomy,  and  the  precepts  in  Isaiah  and  other  books,  the 
commentators  have  turned  away  from  that  light,  and  kept  it 
from  the  subject,  avoiding,  with  singular  pertinacity,  all  allu- 
sion to  the  appointed  mode  of  treating  fugitives  in  the  Old 
Testament,  while  maintaining  that  they  must  be  punished  as 
runaway  slaves  in  the  New,  and  that  the  utmost  that  the  re- 
ligion of  the  gospel  could  do  for  them,  toward  shielding  them 
from  such  cruelty,  was  humbly  to  beg  their  masters  to  refrain 
from  such  punishment !  While  the  piety  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  thus  presented  as  noble,  elevated  and  humane,  that 
of  the  New  is  caricatured,  in  contrast,  as  mean,  servile  and 
oppressive.  It  is  an  insufferable  slander  of  dishonesty  and 
craftiness,  a  handling  of  the  word  of  God  deceitfully,  a  de- 
basement of  the  most  precious  coin  of  divine  inspiration,  for 
avaricious  and  inhuman  purposes. 

Now  it  would  be  almost  as  gross  a  piece  of  ignorance  or 
obstinacy,  and  of  superficial  investigation,  under  the  power  of 
prejudice,  for  a  man  to  undertake  an  exposition  of  the  epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  and  of  the  nature  of  Christ's  priesthood, 
without  referring  to  the  Levitical  priesthood  and  the  laws 
concerning  that,  as  for  a  man  to  expound  the  epistle  to  Phile- 

*  Is.  xvi.,  3,  4,  5. 


444  PAUL'S  PRACTICAL  INTERPRETATION. 

mon  without  referring  to  the  Mosaic  laws  in  regard  to  the 

o  o 

treatment  of  servants  and  fugitives.  It  can  not  be  ignorance  ; 
for  some  of  these  very  writers,  as  we  have  seen,  quote,  as  illus- 
trative of  Onesimus  being  received  by  Philemon  forevei*,  (as 
they  affirm  in  their  slave  sense,)  the  custom  of  boring  the  ear 
of  a  Hebrew  servant,  when  he  entered  into  a  new  contract  to 
serve  his  master  till  the  jubilee  ;  and  they  intimate  that  Onesi- 
mus was  sent  back  by  Paul  to  have  his  ears  bored  and  nailed 
to  Philemon's  service  as  his  property  for  life  !  To  such  an  in- 
credible length  has  the  prejudice  in  behalf  of  slavery  gone, 
while  the  provisions  in  behalf  of  justice  and  mercy  are  con- 
cealed or  forgotten  !  And  so  the  word  of  God  is  ingeniously 
(and  sometimes  unconsciously)  tortured,  to  compel  some  ap- 
pearance of  the  sanction  of  the  greatest  iniquity  of  modem 
times ! 

Paul  must  have  had  God's  law  in  respect  to  the  treatment 
of  fugitives  directly  before  him  in  the  case  of  Onesimus,  and 
he  could  not  have  avoided  consulting  it  for  light.  It  was  a 
guide  to  him  in  this  particular  instance ;  and  his  epistle  to 
Philemon  proves  him  to  have  acted  according  to  it,  under  the 
confidence,  of  Philemon's  own  Christian  character,  committing: 

'  O 

to  him  the  performance  of  the  appointed  duty  of  benevolence 
to  Onesimus  as  a  Christian  brother  and  freeman,  permitted  to 
dwell  where  it  might  like  him  best,  in  that  place  where  he 
should  choose,  and  not  oppressing  him.  Paul  himself,  in  the 
first  place,  gives  him  shelter  in  his  own  hired  house.  He 
does  not  betray  him.  He  does  not  deliver  him  up  into  the 
power  of  his  master  as  a  fugitive.  He  does  not  send  word  to 
him  to  come  up  to  Rome,  prove  property  in  his  slave,  pay 
charges,  and  take  him  away.  He  kindly  protects  and  in- 
structs him.  He  then  at  length  sends  him  back,  with  his  own 
consent,  as  a  trusted  and  honored  messenger  and  brother,  as 
free  as  Tychicus  (Col.  iv.,  7,  9),  with  a  message  for  the  breth- 
ren at  Colosse,  and  a  command  to  Philemon  from  divine  in- 
spiration, as  well  as  the  affectionate  entreaty  of  Paul's  love 


ONESIMUS   A   FREEMAN.  445 

concerning  his  freedom.  He  does  not  accuse  Onesimus  of 
running  away  wrongfully,  does  not  intimate  that  he  commit- 
ted any  wrong  in  escaping.  He  states,  on  the  contrary,  that 
perhaps  it  was  by  the  merciful  providence  of  God  that  he  de- 
parted from  him  for  a  season  that  he  might  be  received  back, 
no  more  as  a  servant,  but  above  a  servant,  a  brother  beloved.* 
He  commands  Philemon  to  receive  him  as  he  would  Paul 
himself,  as  a  partner.  Whatever  wrong  Onesimus  may  have 
done  to  Philemon,  whatever  he  may  have  been  owing  to  him, 
Paul  does  not  intimate  that  it  was  in  running  away  from  him, 
but  during  his  unprofitable  state  of  bondage  to  him,  which 
state  now  ceases  ;  and  in  order  that  there  might  be  no  shadow 
of  claim  remaining  from  Philemon  against  Onesimus  whereby 
he  might  have  said,  I  will  keep  you  still  in  bondage  till  you 
work  out  your  debt,  Paul  takes  all  Onesimus'  debts  upon 
himself,  whatever  they  might  be,  and  becomes  security  for 
him.f  The  result  is,  ONESIMUS  A  FREEMAN.J 

*  SAALSCHUTZ,  Mos.  Recht.  Laws  of  \  WALLON-,    Histoire    d'Esclavage 

Moses,  p.   715.     Saalschutz  remarks  dans  1'Antiquite,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  1.     This 

upon  the  singular  felicity  of  the  laws  writer  declares  that  in  the  example  or 

by  which,  if  a  heathen  slave  happened  Paul   and  the  precepts  of  the  New 

to  have  been  sold  in  Judea,  he  could  Testament,  Christianity  had  already 

escape  from  his  master,  and  the  whole  accomplished  the  emancipation  of  the 

Hebrew  world  were  forbidden  to  do  slave.     "  Paul  received   the  fugitive, 

any  thing  toward  bringing  him  back,  taught  him,  and  sent  him  to  his  mas- 

but  were  bound  of  God  to  shelter  the  ter,  NO  MORE  A  SLAVE,  but  a  brother, 

fugitive.     It  was  impossible  that  Paul  equal,  both  before  the  world  and  before 

could  have  despised  that  law.  God."    The   duty  and   the  work  of 

f  POLI,  Synopsis,  vol.  v.,  in  Epist.  emancipation  are  hero  complete  and 

ad  Phil.     Poole  does  not  once  refer  to  perfect. 

the  law  of  God  forbidding  the  deliver-  JOSIAH  CONDEII,  in  his  work  on  tho 

ing  up  of  fugitives,  but  he  does  refer  Literary  History  of  the  New  Testa- 

to  the  Roman  law  requiring  it,   and  ment,  p.  440,  also  affirms  that  "  in  the 

remarks  "  that  tho  reason  why  Paul  epistle  to  Philemon,  who  has  been,  by 

was  not  willing  to  keep   Onesimus  an  absurd  abuse  of  terms,   styled  a 

was  because  of  the  very  heavy  penal-  slaveholder,  St.  Paul  has  pronounced  a 

ties  of  the  Roman  laws  against  re-  more  emphatic  condemnation  of  slave- 

ceiving  or  retaining  fugitive  slaves."  holding  by  Christians  than  could  have 

Men  would  seem  to  imagine  that  Paul  been  conveyed  by  more  direct  prohi- 

was  more  afraid  of  breaking  the  law  bitions." 
of  Rome  than  of  God. 


CHAPTER    XL  . 

EVIDENCE  FBOM  HEBBEWS,  JAMES,  PETEB,  AND  THE  APOCALYPSE. 

HEBREWS  xiii.,  3.  "  Remember  them  that  are  in  bonds,  as 
bound  with  them."  Doubtless,  from  the  phraseology  em- 
ployed in  this  passage,  and  in  others  where  the  same  words 
occur,  the  primary  application  of  it  is  to  those  in  imprison- 
ment for  Christ,  or  bound  with  this  chain,  (Acts  xxviii.,  20,)  as 
was  Paul  at  Rome,  or  those  condemned  by  their  persecutors 
to  labor  in  the  mines,  or  under  chains ;  but  in  general  it  com- 
prehends those  under  the  galling  yoke  of  slavery,  those  whose 
heathen  masters  knew  no  rule  of  conduct  toward  their  slaves 
but  that  of  the  supreme  ownership  and  inexorable  severities  of 
the  Roman  law,  by  which  they  were  treated  not  as  persons 
but  as  things,  as  slaves  are  in  America.*  These  were  to  be 
remembered  in  prayer,  and  in  every  way  of  possible  compas- 
sion, just  as  the  Christians  themselves,  to  whom  Paul  was 
writing,  would  desire  to  be  remembered,  if  they  were  in 
this  deplorable  condition,  by  those  who  enjoyed  the  blessed- 
ness of  freedom.  The  words  employed  are  deafiiuv  and  ovv- 
dedejiKvoi, ;  but  every  slave  is  in  a  bondage  incomparably  worse 
than  was  that  of  Paul,  the  prisoner  of  Jesus,  and  under  chains 
of  ownership  as  a  thing,  a  chattel,  more  galling,  more  dread- 

*  Compare   STROUD,   Slave   Laws,  chapters  ii.,  xvi.,  xxxvi.     Christians 

Condition  of  the  Slave  in  Civil  Soci-  not  put  to  death  were  treated  with 

ety,  ch.  iii.,  with  Fuss,  Rom,  Antiq.,  imprisonment,  exile,  or  slavery  in  the 

sec.  54,  55,  56,  and  GROTE,  History  mines.     The  mines  of  Numidia  con- 

of  Greece,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  94,  95.     Also  tained  nine  bishops  in  slavery,  with 

BLAIR'S  Inquiry  of  Slavery  among  the  many  olhers. — CYPRIAX,  cited  in  GIB- 

Romans,  32,  45.    Also  GIBBON,  Hist.,  BON".  Also  WALLON,  Hist  d'E  selavage. 


EESPECT  OF  PERSOXS  FORBIDDEN".  447 

ful,  more  iniquitous,  than  was  that  chain  which  fastened  Paul's 
wrist,  even  in  his  own  hired  house,  to  the  arm  of  his  Roman 
keeper. 

James  ii.,  1.  "  Have  not  the  faith  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Lord  of  glory,  with  respect  of  persons."  The  worst  kind 
and  degree  of  such  respect  is  that  against  color,  reducing  the 
colored  race  to  a  despised,  oppressed,  enslaved  class,  and  carried 
to  such  an  extreme  that  the  dreadful  assertion  is  not  only  tol- 
erated but  defended,  that  black  men  have  no  rights  that  white 
men  are  bound  to  respect.*  A  Christianity  that  can  accept  or 
endure  this  as  justice  will  admit  and  defend  any  iniquity,  any 
cruelty  against  the  race  so  set  apart  for  scorn  and  oppression, 
so  condemned  to  a  living  death  by  a  public  moral  assassina- 
tion.f  It  will  force  upon  them  a  social  system  that  crushes 
them  into  the  condition  of  chattels,  in  the  torture  of  life-long 
labor  without  wages,  under  a  contempt  not  felt  toward  things, 
and  that  animals  can  not  be  made  to  feel.  It  will  force  upon 
them  a  church  and  a  religion  that  by  law  keeps  them  in  igno- 
rance, forbids  their  being  taught  to  read,  excludes  them  from 
the  sacrament  of  marriage,  makes  the  Sabbath  a  mockery,  or 
a  mere  block  and  pulley  for  hauling  taut  and  securing  the  fast- 
enings of  the  system. J  This  is  that  respect  of  persons,  forbid- 
den of  God,  but  carried  in  slavery  to  the  extreme  of  turning 

*  SIR  JAMES  STEPHENS,  Slavery  in  f  Contrast  this  old  "West  India  legis- 

the  West  Indies,  voL  i.,  p.  364.     Un-  lation,  and  similar  law  and  usage  in 

der  the  section  of  Maxims  of  Colonial  America,  with  the   law  and  custom 

Slave  Law,  the  author  presents  some  uuder  Louis  XL   of  France.      (See 

terrible  proofs  of  the  power  and  prop-  SMYTH'S  Lectures  on  Mod.  Hist.,voL  i., 

agation  of  such  caste  and  prejudice,  p.  110.)    "  An  age  of  superstition  and 

He  cites  as  the  law  of  usage  "that  violence."     ''In  all  cases  where  the 

no  white  person  can  by  any  means  proofs  for  and  against  the  serfage  are 

whatever  be  reduced  to  slavery ;  but  equal,  let  the  decision  be  in  favor  of 

that  every  man,  woman   and  child,  liberty." 

whose  skin  is  black,  or  whose  mother,  \   HUMBOLDT,    Kingdom   of   New 

grandmother,    or    great-grandmother  Spain,  vol.  i.,  p.  174,  etc.,  presents  il- 

was  of  that  complexion,  shall  be  pre-  lustrations  of  the  power  and  misery  of 

sumed  to  be  a  slave,  unless  the  con-  slave-caste  perpetuated,  but  he  says 

tniry  is  proved."  that  in  Mexico  the  lawa  arc  always 


448  BILL   FOE   WAGES   KEPT  BACK. 

persons  into  things.  In  the  church,  by  command  of  Christ, 
there  was  to  be  neither  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free ; 
but  all  one  in  him.  But  slavery  denies  or  destroys  even  the 
fundamental  law  that  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 
and  races,  and  substitutes  in  its  stead  a  discord  of  partial 
cruelty  worse  than  any  depraved  JManichean  imagination  ever 
attributed  to  the  all-wise  Creator  and  Governor.* 

James  v.,  4.  "  The  hire  of  the  laborers  kept  back  by  fraud." 
The  whole  of  this  passage  is  terrible.  The  fraud  of  taking 
men  and  using  them  as  slaves,  not  only  keeping  back  their 
wages,  but  giving  them  nothing,  and  making  it  a  point  of  law 
that  nothing  is  due  to  them,  buying  and  selling,  not  only  their 
labor,  but  themselves,  their  bodies  and  souls,  as  merchandise, 
is  the  highest  possible  example  of  this  wickedness.  In  addi- 
tion to  all  other  cruelties,  the  wages  of  which  they  have  been 
defrauded,  but  which  the  eye  of  Supreme  Justice  has  marked 

interpreted  in  favor  of  liberty,  and  the  closes  the  inalienable  and  incurable 
government  favored  the  increase  of  cruelty  and  selfishness  of  the  system, 
freemen.  This  was  written  in  1809.  "  The  first  founders  of  slavery  in  the 
HUMBOLDT  gives  a  description  of  English  as  well  as  Dutch  colonies  held 
what  he  witnessed  of  the  disregard  of  it  to  be  incompatible  with  the  condition 
color  and  of  caste  in  the  Academy  of  of  a  Christian  man,  and  such  as  pa- 
Fine  Arts  in  Mexico,  where  rank,  gans  and  infidels  could  alone  be  law- 
color  and  race  were  compounded,  the  fully  subjected  to."  "While  this  prej. 
Indian,  the  Mestizo,  and  the  Whites,  udice  existed,  a  man  by  becoming  a 
the  sons  of  the  lowliest  artisans  and  Christian  might  possibly  escape  from 
of  the  highest  lords  were  seated  to-  the  condition  of  a  slave.  They  there- 
gether.  (Vol.  i.,  p.  241.)  fore,  in  Jamaica,  as  early  as  1696, 
*  SMYTH,  Lectures  on  Mod.  Hist.,  passed  a  law  to  prevent  such  a  re- 
vol.  i.,  170,  refers  to  "the  eflect  of  suit.  "Be  it  enacted  that  no  slave 
habit  in  banishing  all  the  natural  feel-  shall  be  free  by  becoming  a  Chris- 
ings  of  mercy,  justice,  benevolence,  as  tian."  In  America  there  is  an  im. 
in  the  instances  of  slave-dealers,  etc.,  provemcnt  on  this.  Be  it  enacted 
as  perfectly  frightful."  Compare  that  slavery  is  the  highest  style  of 
WRIGHT,  Slavery  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Christianity,  "  undoubtedly  good,  and 
Hope,  p.  15,  the  effect  of  law  and  only  good ;  the  only  good  in  the 
usage  sanctioning  concubinage  and  whole  affair  of  negro  existence  in 
adultery.  STEPHENS,  Slavery  in  W.  America." — Southern  Presb.  Review, 
I,  under  the  head  of  Unjust  and  Mer-  May,  1857. 
ciless  Laws,  voL  i.,  sec.  6,  p.  208,  dis- 


GOD'S   BILL   FOE   WAGES   KEPT  BACK.  449 

as  owing  to  them  by  the  law,  Give  unto  your  servants  that 
which  is  just  and  equal,  make  up  an  account  against  their  op- 
pressors for  which  God  alone  can  bring  them  to  a  settlement. 
Let  any  man  once  tiompute,  if  possible,  the  amount  of  the 
wages  of  the  four  millions  of  slaves  in  this  country,  accumulat- 
ing for  so  many  years,  and  kept  back  by  fraud  ;  the  amount 
due  by  the  law  of  justice  and  equality,  according  to  which  God 
commands  that  all  servants  should  be  treated.  It  would 
amount,  at  the  lowest  rate,  to  more  than  the  value  of  all  the 
real  estate  of  their  masters  at  this  hour. 

And  yet,  if  they  had  been  treated  justly,  if  their  wages  had 
been  paid  them,  as  free  laborers  from  the  outset,  the  wealth 
of  their  masters,  the  value  of  the  lands,  the  quantity  and  worth 
of  their  products,  would  have  been  incalculably  accumulated. 
The  North  and  the  South  would  have  been  richer  by  thou- 
sands of  millions  ;  for  the  payment  of  just  wages,  and  the 
treatment  of  the  laborer  according  to  Goji's  laws  of  freedom 
and  benevolence,  are  the  only  conditions  on  which  the  earth 
will  yield  her  increase  with  the  security  of  the  divine  blessing. 
Without  these  conditions  the  curse  of  the  Lord,  as  in  this 
epistle,  is  on  the  field  and  the  wealth  of  the  wicked,  and  an 
eating  rust  as  of  fire  is  in  the  prosperity  and  at  the  vitals  of 
the  nation,  whose  laws  and  subjects  make  merchandise  of  men. 

1  Peter  ii.,  16.  "  As  free,  and  not  using  your  liberty  for  a 
cloak  of  maliciousness,  but  as  the  servants  of  God."  Com- 
pare 2  Peter  ii.,  19,  "While  they  promise  them  liberty,  they 
themselves  are  the  servants  of  corruption  ;  for  of  whom  a 
man  is  overcome,  of  the  same  is  he  brought  in  bondage." 

When  the  apostle  says  as  free,  he  speaks  in  opposition  to 
slavery,  and  in  perfect  correspondence  with  Paul,  in  1  Cor. 
vii.,  22,  23  (be  ye  not  the  servants  of  men),  and  Gal.  v.,  1,  13, 
"  Ye  have  been  called  unto  liberty."  But  it  is  absurd  for  any 
man  who  is  a  slave  to  sin,  to  sensual  desire,  and  to  an<j;ry  pas- 
sion,  to  talk  about  liberty,  for  he  knows  nothing  of  it,  and 
being  conquered  by  his  own  corruptions,  is  by  them  sold  as  a 


450          THE  GENTLE  AND  THE  FKOWARD. 

slave  to  Satan,  just  as  men  taken  captive  in  war  were  by  the 
Pagan  nations  tasked  and  sold  as  slaves.  But  the  servants 
of  God  are  redeemed  from  all  slavery,  and  are  bound  to  hate 
every  form  of  it. 

1  Peter  ii.,  18.  "Servants  (oiKerai)  be  subject  to  your 
masters  with  all  fear ;  not  only  to  the  good  and  gentle,  but 
also  to  the  fro  ward."  There  is  here  a  similar  distinction  as 
in  1  Tim.  vi.,  1,  2,  between  servants  under  the  yoke,  and  those 
that  have  believing  masters.  And  much  the  same  reason  is 
given  for  such  subjection  as  is  presented  in  the  first  verse  of 
the  next  chapter  for  the  subjection  of  wives  to  their  own 
husbands,  although  such  husbands  might  be  unbelieving ;  the 
reason,  namely,  of  the  power  of  a  sweet  and  loving  obedience, 
to  the  honor  of  God  and  the  gospel,  attracting  men  to  him 
and  to  it,  winning  them  by  such  meek,  submissive,  holy  con- 
versation, and  bringing  them  to  Christ  by  the  power  of  such 
practical  piety,  when  otherwise  they  might  have  continued 
ignorant  of  the  word.  * 

Calvin  thinks  that  by  the  use  of  the  word  oiKerai  instead 
of  SovAoL,  in  this  passage,  it  is  probable  that  free  domestics 
are  to  be  understood  as  well  as  slaves.*  But  if  slaves  at  all, 
then  would  not  the  particular  proper  word  have  been  used  in 
place  of  the  more  general  ?f  Eusebius,  Beza,  Cave  and  others 
have  supposed  that  Peter  wrote  his  epistles  to  Jews  ;J  if  so, 
there  is  good  reason  why  he  should  not  have  written  to  slaves, 
since  they  had  none.  But  Lardner  and  others  believe  him  to 
have  written  "  to  all  Christians  in  general ;  Jews  and  Gentiles 
living  in  Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappadocia,  Asia  and  Bithynia,  the 


*  CALVIN,  Comm.  ia  Ep.,  1  Pet,  ch.  the  same  book,  he  uses  finv/.oif  in 

ii.    "  Quoniam  non  hie  habetur  6ov?.ot,  speaking  of  the  punishment  of  crime, 
sed  otKerai,  possumus  intelligere  Ii-        J  CAVE,  Lives  of  the  Apostles,  211. 

bertos  una  cum  servis."  "  He  wrote  to  the  Jewish  converts, 

\  JOSEPHUS,   Contra  Apion,  B.  2,  to  direct  them  in  the  relations  both 

sec.  19,  uses  for  the  Jewish  servants  of  the  civil  and  the  Christian  life." 
the  word  OIKETUV.    But  in  sec.  30,  of 


INNATE    HATRED    OP    SLAVERY.  451 

greatest  part  of  whom  must  have  been  converted  by  Paul."* 
Bishop  Sanderson  argues  that  Peter  was  addressing  the  Jews,f 
and  showing  them  "that  being  indeed  set  at  liberty  by  Christ, 
they  are  not  therefore  any  more  to  enthi-al  themselves  to  any 
living  soul  or  other  creature  ;  not  to  submit  to  any  ordinance 
of  man  as  slaves,  that  is,  as  if  the  ordinance  itself  did,  by  any 
proper,  direct  and  immediate  virtue,  bind  the  conscience.! 
But  yet,  notwithstanding,  they  might  and  ought  to  submit 
thereunto,  as  the  Lord's  freemen,  and  in  a  free  manner." 

Their  native,  inexpugnable  hatred  of  slavery,  the  Jews  had 
received  from  the  Old  Testament,  as  well  as  from  the  law 
written  on  the  heart. §  But  the  gospel  taught  Christian  ser- 
vants, even  when  treated  as  slaves,  to  be  submissive  and 
gentle,  even  to  the  fro  ward,  and  when  under  the  yoke,  for 
the  sake  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  for  the  honor  of  his  cause. 
Love  to  Christ  could  unite  such  submission  (in  all  things  in 
which  it  was  not  contrary  to  his  will)  with  the  most  perfect 
spirit  of  true  independence,  and  th£  most  undiminished  ab- 
horrence of  oppression. 

*  LAEDNEB,  vol.  vi.,  p.  260.  er    more   justly    bo    made    to  give 

f  See    also    BLOOMFIELD,    N.    T.  way." 

"  Chiefly  Jews,  but  partly  Gentiles."  §  JOSEPHUS,  Wars  of  the  Jews,  B. 

%  See  CALVIN  on   Exodus   L,  17.  7,   ch.   viii.      "We    have    preferred 

"Sustained    and    supported   by  the  death  before  slavery,"  fiovheiaf.  "We 

reverential  fear  of  God,  they  boldly  are  bound  to  die,"  Eleazer  argued ; 

despised -the  commands  and   threat-  "but  not  to  be  slaves;  death  is  nec- 

ening  of  Pharaoh."     Calvin  remarks  essary,  but  slavery  unnatural  and  un- 

on  the  wickedness  of  those,  "  whom  necessary."     lie  was  advising,  in  the 

the  fear  of  men  instead  of  God  gov-  defense   of   the   fortress   of  Masada, 

orns,  and  who,  under  pretext  of  due  that  they  should  rather  die  than  yield 

submission,  obey  the  wicked  will  of  to  the  Romans,  by  whom  they  would 

governors  in  opposition  to  justice  and  inevitably  either  be  put  to  death  or 

right,  being  in  some  cases  the  minis-  sold  as  slaves.     His  speech  is  a  faith- 

ters  of  avarice  and  rapacity,  in  others  ful  demonstration  of  the  love  of  lib- 

of  cruelty  ;  pleading  the  frivolous  ex-  erty   instilled  into   the   heart  by  the 

cuse  that  theyobey  their  princes  ac-  "lively   oracles,"  and  which   in   the 

cording  to  the  word   of  God ;  as  if  Christian   would   be   combined   with 

every  earthly  power  which  exalts  it-  supreme   submission   to   the  will  of 

self  against  heaven  ought  not  rath  God. 


CHAPTER    XLI. 

EVIDENCE  FROM  THE  APOCALYPSE. — THE  MERCHANDISE  OF  SLAVES  AND  SOULS  or  MEM 
IN  GREAT  BABYLON. — THE  DOMESTIC  TRAITIO  WORSE  THAN  THE  FOREIGN. 

REVELATIONS  xiii.,  10.  "He  that  leadeth  into  captivity 
shall  go  into  captivity."  There  is  a  striking  reference  in  this 
to  Is.  xxxiii.,  1  :  "  Wo  to  thee  that  spoilest,  and  thou  wast  not 
spoiled,  and  dealest  treacherously,  and  they  dealt  not  treach- 
erously with  thee !  When  thou  shalt  cease  to  spoil,  thou  shalt 
be  spoiled  ;  and  when  thou  shalt  make  an  end  to  deal  treach- 
erously, they  shall  deal  treacherously  with  thee."  The  carry- 
ing of  men  into  captivity,  the  forcing  of  them  into  bondage, 
the  making  slaves  of  them,  and  compelling  them  to  serve  as 
slaves,  as  was  done  generally  with  captives  in  "wai1,*  is  one  of 
the  gigantic  forms  of  oppression  and  cruelty  on  earth  most 
plainly  condemned  of  God.  The  horrors  and  woes  consequent 
upon  it  have  been  interminable.f  But  if  the  making  of  slaves 

*  JOSEPHUS,  BelL  Jud.,  B.  vi.,  ch.  Fuss,  POTTER,  BURIGNT,  BECKEB, 
8.  He  speaks  of  the  multitude  of  and  others.  The  almost  inconceivable 
captives  being  so  vast  that  the  price  miseries  and  crimes  resulting  from  the 
for  them  was  very  low,  while  the  pur-  recognition  of  slavery  as  a  legitimate 
chasers  were  few.  A  very  literal  ful-  status  in  Greece  and  Rome,  and  from 
fillment  of  the  prediction  in  Deut.  the  sale  and  distribution  of  captives  in 
xxviii.,  68 :  "  Ye  shall  be  sold  unto  innumerable  wars,  and  from  the  con- 
your  enemies  for  bondmen  and  bond-  version  of  freemen  into  serfs  and  chat- 
women,  and  no  man  shall  buy  you."  tels,  and  of  free  parents  into  the  foun- 
Josephus  calculates  the  number  car-  tain  heads  of  perpetual  streams  of  slav- 
ried  away  captive  on  the  taking  of  ery,  are  but  partially  disclosed  by 
Jerusalem  at  97,000,  (ch.  ix.,  sec.  3,)  GROTE.  (Hist  Greece,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  ii.) 
and  this,  it  has  been  supposed,  is  a  WALLON,  (Histoire  d'Esclavage,  voL 
moderate  computation.  ii.,  the  chapters  on  Sources  of  Slavery, 

\  See  WALLON,  BLAIR,  STEPHENS,  and  State  of  the  Slave  under  Law,) 

BRODGH AM,  GIBBON,  GROTE,  NIEBUHR,  STEPHENS,  (Penal  Slavery  and  Max- 


MEANEST   FORM    OF   MAN-STEALING.  453 

under  pretence  of  conquest  over  enemies  is  sinful  in  God's 
sight,  how  much  more  the  taking  and  holding  of  slaves  by 
individuals  for  gain,  under  pretence  of  having  purchased  them 
with  money !  The  making  merchandise  of  men  was  a  crime 
in  God's  sight  worthy  of  death  ;  and  no  man  can  be  a  slave- 
holder without  being  guilty  of  this  crime.  The  slaveholder 
kidnaps  and  carries  away  captive  a  human  being  every  day 
and  hour  in  which  he  holds  a  human  being  against  his  own 
will  as  a  slave,  as  property.  The  Qreek  word  in  1  Tim.  i.,  10, 
translated  MEN-STEALEES,  is  rendered  in  GROTIUS  and  others 
by  the  Latin  word  plagiariis.  And  the  Latin  word  pl<iyi.a- 
rius  is  rendered  by  FACCIOLATCTS  as  one  who  not  only  steals, 
but  retains  a  freeman  in  slavery,  against  his  consent,  invitum 
in  *<  ri'itnte  retinet.  Any  man  who  claims  another  man  as  his 
property  is  therefore  such  a  man-stealer,  avdpa-^odLarr^.  He 
falsely  assumes  to  be  the  owner  of  the  personality  of  which 
the  man  himself,  under  God,  is  the  sole  owner.  Hence  the 
word  plagiarist  in  our  language,  one  who  falsely  proclaims 
himself  the  author  of  another  man's  books.  Slaveholding  is 
the!  j>l<nji<!ri$m  of  immortal  beings  from  God  ;  and  the  steal- 
ing of  the  children  from  their  parents,  and  making  merchan- 
dise of  tlicm,  is  at  once  the  meanest,  most  cruel,  and  yet  the 
most  unnoticed^unrebuked  form  of  this_incwity.*  The  oppro- 
bTIum  connected  with  the  word  man-stealer  ought  tcTrest  also 

ims  of  Colonial  Slave  Law),  and  other  would  appoint  a  day  for  the  public 
writers.  Incidentally,  sometimes,  a  sale  of  tho  captives ;  then  came  the 
terrible  revelation  is  made.  Every  strife  for  the  best  and  cheapest  bar- 
extreme  of  severity  made  possible  by  gains  in  wholesale  purchases,  and  then 
slave  law  finds  its  realization  in  fact,  the  slaves  were  herded  in  gangs  to 
and  makes  a  fixture  of  existence  in  their  various  destinations,  or  city 
character.  Quot  servi  lot  hastes  was  a  slave-markets. 

proverb,   or  quot   hastes  tot  servi,   as  *  COLUMELLA    proposed    rewards, 

many  enemies,  so  many  slaves,  capable  bounties,  for  the  breeding  of  slaves ; 

of  another  and  terrible  meaning,  after-  and  the  number  of  verna',  home-born, 

ward  realized.     But  this  was  the  war  was  sometimes  almost  incredible.  See 

maxim.      Slave  merchants   followed  BLAIR'S  Inquiry,  and  WALLOX,  Tlis- 

the  great  armies  like  vultures.     After  toire,  voL  ii.,  ch.  ii.     Also  BECKER'S 

a    battlo    and    victory  the    general  Gallus,  213. 


454 


OPPKOBEIUM   OF   SLAVEHOLDING. 


on  the  word  slaveholder.  A  raan-stealer  is  any  one  who 
makes  merchandise  of  human  beings.  A  slaveholder  is  such 
a  merchant,  such  a  slave-trader.  He  bought  his  human  beings 
as  chattels  ;  he  will  sell  them  as  chattels.  But  worse  yet,  a 
slaveholder  is  one  who  propagates  and  perpetuates  the  crime, 
and  whereas  perhaps  he  bought  the  parents,  whereas  he  went 
through  the  formula  of  purchasing  them,  and  therefore  holds 
them  as  property  ;  he  scouts  even  this  formula  in  regard  to 
their  posterity,  but  seizes,  claims,  and  holds  the  babes,  new- 
born, the  children,  and  makes  merchandise  of  them,  without 
even  the  pretence  of  paying  a  farthing  for  them.* 

Rev.  xviii.,  13.  This  was  one  of  the  great  crimes  found  in 
great  Babylon,  when  the  time  of  her  destruction  and  punish- 
ment was  come.  "The  merchandise  of  slaves  and  souls  of 
men,"  a^dr^v  KO.I  tpv^ag  avdptirruv.  "  The  merchants  of 
these  things,  which  were  made  rich  by  her,  shall  stand  afar 
off,  for  the  fear  of  her  torment,  weeping  and  wailing."  The 
reference  here  is  to  Ezekiel  xxvii.,  13,  the  merchandise  of 
Tyre,  and  the  merchants  of  Javan,f  Tubal  and  Meschec,  who 
traded  the  persons  of  men  (souls  of  men)  and  vessels  of  brass 
in  the  market.  In  this  slave  tradej  souls  are  tossed  about  as 


*  PLUTARCH,  Life  of  Cato,  relates  \   STEPHAXUS,  Thesaurus. 

that  he  was  in  the  business  of  buying  TroJitr-^f  is  rendered  by  Stephanus  by 

up  slaves  on   speculation,  especially  the   Latin  mancipator,    whoever   re- 

youths,  from  the  slave  merchants  who  duces  any  man  to  slavery.     lie  adds 

bought  them  at  the  army  auctions;  illustrations    of   its     significance    as 

he  did  this  in  order  to  increase  their  those  who  supply  slaves  to   the  mer- 

value  by  training  them,  and  then  to  chants,  that  is,  literally,  slave-dealers. 

sell  them  at  an  advanced  rate.     Our  Thessaly,  he  states,  was  full  of  such 

slave-breeding  States  improve  on  all  men  in  that  business. 

these  methods,  and  concentrate  them  BRETSCHXEIDER,   on  the  origin   cf 

into  a  home  manufacture.  the  word  avdpaTrodiaru,  with  its  deri- 

f   WALLON,   Histoire   d'Esclavage  vation,  interprets  it  thus:    hominem 

dans    1'  Antiquite,    vol.    ii.,   part    ii.,  capio,  el  servum  vendo,  literally,  /  take 

Sources  of  Slavery.     Ionia  is  referred  a  man  and  sell  a  slave,  and  he  refers 

to  in  the  text,  and  the  slaves  brought  directly  to   Ex.  xxi.,  1C,  and  Deut. 

thence  were  highly  valued  for  their  xxiv.,  1.     He  that  stealeth,  holdeth, 

beauty.      But   Delos  became  one  of  or  maketh  merchandise  of  a  man,  shall 

the  greatest  slave  marts  of  antiquity,  be  put  to  death.    SCHLEUSNER  also 


MERCHANDISE   OF   SOULS.  455 

things,  and  the  merchandise  of  slaves  is  the  merchandise  of 
souls,  B-N  »B?,  souls  of  men. 

There  is  no  distinction  as  to  guilt,  drawn  in  the  Scriptures, 
between  a  foreign  and  domestic  slave-trade.  On  some  ac- 
counts the  guilt  of  the  foreign  seems  the  blackest,  and  our  laws 
have  condemned  it  as  piracy.  Our  laws  at  one  and  the  same 
time  brand  the  bringing  of  men  into  slavery  as  piracy,  and 
the  rescuing  of  them  from  slavery  at  home  as  piracy  and  trea- 
son. John  Brown,  as  captain  of  a  slaver,  bringing  a  cargo  of 
slaves  to  Cuba  or  Louisiana,  would  have  received  a  reward. 
John  Brown  attempting  to  deliver  a  dozen  slaves  from  slav- 
ery, is  hanged.*  Abroad  the  slave-trade  is  denounced  as  a 
traffic  of  demons ;  at  home  it  is  extolled  as  a  business  that 
becometh  saints.  Abroad  it  is  the  instigation  of  the  devil ;  at 
home  it  is  the  climax  of  social  civilization  and  Christianity, 
and  the  missionary  providence  of  God. 

But  it  is  must  be  admitted  that  if  either  form  of  this  great 
wickedness  is  crime,  the  domestic  is  the  worst,  because,  1.  It 
is  a  breeding,  propagating  form,  with  frighful  rapidity  in  the 
increase.  2.  It  is  committed  and  continued  under  the  light  of 
the  gospel,  and  with  pretence  of  a  sanction  therein.  3.  It  is 
established  by  law,  which  is  always  an  immeasurable  exaspera- 

refers  the  word,  for  illustration,  to  Tlio  jury  stood  eight  for  acquittal  and 
those  very  passages  in  the  Old  Testa-  four  for  conviction,  and  doubtless  the 
ment  in  the  laws  of  Moses,  where  man-stealer  goes  scot  free.  But  in 
God  sentenced  the  man-stealer,  and  proximity  with  this  comes  the  follow- 
tho  man  who  made  merchandise  of  ing  record  of  the  penalty  of  death 
man,  to  death.  against  a  poor  unfortunate  creature, 
*  There  is  no  instance  of  any  pun-  not  for  any  crime  before  God  or  man, 
ishment  ever  being  inflicted  on  any  but  simply  for  aiding  a  human  being 
man  for  making  slaves,  or  bringing  to  escape  from  bondage :  "  Charlos- 
them  from  Africa  to  this  country,  ton,  South  Carolina,  January  29. 
Near  the  time  when  John  Brown  was  Francis  Mitchell,  porter  of  the  steam- 
hanged  in  Virginia  for  attempting  to  res-  ship  Marion,  was  yesterday  sentenced 
cue  slaves  from  slavery,  a  man  named  to  be  hung  on  the  2d  March  for  as- 
Buowx  was  being  tried,  on  a  second  sistiny  a  slave  in  his  attempt  to  leave 
indictment,  in  Savannah,  for  the  crime  the  State .'"  No  language  can  de- 
of  bringing  Africans  into  the  United  scribe  the  wickedness  and  injustice  of 
States  and  holding  them  as  slaves,  such  'elective  and  oppressive  cruelty. 


456  PERVERSIONS    OF   CONSCIENCE. 

tion  of  any  sin.  4.  Being  so  sanctioned,  and  transmitted  le- 
gally to  posterity,  each  successive  generation  of  slave  traders, 
as  the  masters  and  owners  of  propeTty  belonging  to  them  by 
inheritance,  claim  an  increasing  right  in  such  property,  and 
have  less  and  less  conscience  of  the  sin,  and  lay  their  grasjp 
with  less  and  less  compunction  upon  the  next  crop  or  genera- 
tion of  human  beings  as  their  possession,  and  as  having  been 
justly  foreordained  by  them  for  bondage,  and  under  a  benev- 
olent providence,  born  to  be  the  victims  of  the  system  of 
slavery  and  of  the  domestic  slave-traffic. 

This,  with  its  connections,  is  the  vastest  form  of  merchan- 
dise and  mercantile  speculation,  except  perhaps  the  traffic  in 
hay  and  cattle,  carried  on  in  the  United  States.  All  parts  of 
the  nation,  north  and  south,  east  and  west,  are  fearfully  in- 
volved in  it.*  The  merchants  stand  afar  off  in  fear  and  tor- 
ment, in  terror  of  the  breaking  up  of  this  great  Babylon.  It 
is  contended  by  a  vast  party  that  the  union  of  the  States  de- 
pends upon  the  integrity  and  unassailable  security  of  this 
traffic.  The  complicity  in  it  is  as  a  vein  of  gangrene  running 
from  head  to  foot  in  the  body,  which  can  be  traced  by  the  in- 
flammation a"nd  discoloration,  and  is  frightfully  diffusive  and 
malignant. 

The  palsying  and  perverting  power  of  this  sin  upon  the  con- 
science is  appalling.  Holding  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,  it 
becomes  a  lie,  and  men  who  thus  hold  it  are  given  over  to 
strong  delusion  to  believe  a  lie.  We  have  read  of  a  stream 

*  Extensive  mortgages  are  held  on  be  the  consequences.     "  Why  do  you 

slave  property,  perhaps  at  the   ex-  not  emancipate  your  own  ?"  was  the 

treme  north.     Hence  a  part  of  our  very  natural  question  of   his  friend, 

sensitiveness.      A   slave  master  and  "  If  such  are  your  convictions,  why 

planter  in  Louisiana,  the   ostensible  not   begin   at   home?"     "Why  sir," 

owner  of  a  large  number  of  slaves,  was  the  answer,  "they  are  every  one 

declared  to  a   mercantile  friend  his  of  them  mortgaged  to  merchants  in 

convictions  of  the  wickedness,  wretch-  New  York,  and  if  I  should  set  them 

edness,    and  ruin   of  the   system   of  free,  they  would  foreclose,  and  grasp 

slavery,  and  avowed  that  if  he  could  them  instantly,  and  they  would  all  be 

do  it,  he  would  set  free  every  slave  in  sold  under  the  hammer  !" 
the  United  States,  whatever    might 


SOPHISTRIES    OF   SLAVERY.  457 

that  encrusts  every  thing  that  falls  in  it,  or  grows  by  it,  with 
flint,  and  just  so  the  instincts  of  humanity  itself,  as  well  as  the 
precepts  of  religion,  are  turned  into  stone  by  the  flowing  of 
this  infernal  fountain  over  them.  The  Christian  conscience, 
steeped  in  the  habits  and  sophistries  of  slave-life,  comes  out  a 
fossil,  on  which  the  slaveholder  grinds  his  sharpest  arguments. 
The  sanctioning  and  shielding  of  such  abominations  can  not 
possibly  be  less  offensive  to  God  than  the  suffering  that  wo- 
man Jezebel  to  teach  in  the  early  churches,  and  to  throw  the 
seduction  of  her  sophistry  over  the  immoralities  of  paganism. 
The  ministers  of  the  gospel  who  listen  to  these  doctrines,  and 
consent  to  silence  the  gospel  in  regard  to  them,  are  infected 
by  them.  The  very  essence  of  morality  is  changed,  and  the 
mind  and  conscience  are  defiled.  A  man  lays  himself  down 
to  bathe  in  this  stream,  and  his  moral  sense  turns  into  adi- 
pocire.  The  finger  of  slavery  presses  upon  his  intelligence  and 
emotion,  and  there  is  no  rebound ;  the  mark  stays,  as  upon  an 
image  of  hog's  lard  ;  there  is  a  deep  indentation.  The  man 
ofadipocire  goes  into  the  pulpit ;  his  very  sermons  are  a  dead 
tissue ;  his  conscience,  his  sentiments,  are  as  lifeless  as  pale 
wax,  as  smooth,  as  cold,  as  susceptible  of  being  moulded  to 
order  for  the  forms  of  political  expediency. 

Rev.  xix.,  18.  Describing  the  supper  of  the  great  God,  the 
fowls  are  summoned  to  eat  the  flesh  of  all  "  free  and  bond, 
small  and  great."  Compare  chapter  vi.,  15,  "  every  bond- 
man and  every  freeman."  A  southern  writer,  the  author  of 
what  is  called  a  Scriptural  view  of  the  moral  relations  of  Afri- 
can slavery,  adduces  these  passages  in  proof  "  that  there  Avill 
be  bondmen  on  the  earth  when  the  last  trumpet  sounds. 
This  fact  being  admitted,  the  writer  says  that  "  the  hope  of 
liberating  all  the  slaves  upon  the  whole  earth  must  be  vision- 
ary indeed."  The  conclusion  is  this,  that  African  slavery  is  a 
divine  institution,  and  that  any  scheme  of  abolition  is  a  wild, 
fanatical  interference  with  that  which  is  destined  of  God  to 
stand  still  till  the  last  day. 


458  JUDICIAL   BLINDNESS. 

By  this  kind  of  argument  the  mention  of  murderers  in  Rev. 
xxi.,  8,  and  whoremongers  and  idolaters,  and  liars,  proves 
that  there  will  be  murderers  and  liars  at  the  end  of  the  world, 
and  therefore  murdering  and  lying  are  divine  institutions,  and 
any  interference  with  them  in  the  hope  of  delivering  the  earth 
from  such  wickedness  is  visionary  and  foolish.  A  perfect  de- 
lirium seems  to  have  seized  upon  the  understandings  of  those 
who  have  consecrated  themselves  to  the  defense  of  this  gigan- 
tic cruelty  and  sin  ;  but  it  is  a  DELIRIUM  TBEIIEXS.  Perhaps 
they  are  in  the  position  of  those  described  by  Paul  in  his  sec- 
ond epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  as  wrought  upon  of  Satan 
with  all  deceivableness  and  unrighteousness,  because  they  re- 
ceived not  the  love  of  the  truth  that  they  might  be  saved  ; 
and  for  the  same  cause  given  over  of  God  to  strong  delusion 
to  believe  a  lie,  because  they  believed  not  the  truth,  but  had 
pleasure  in  unrighteousness.  They  are  an  example,  such  as 
we  could  hardly  have  deemed  possible  under  the  light  of  the 
gospel,  of  men  so  lost  to  all  sense  of  guilt  and  shame  in  the 
practice  and  defense  of  the  greatest  of  national  and  individual 
cruelties,  that  like  the  old  Jews  at  the  climax  of  their  debase- 
ment and  crisis  of  their  overthrow,  under  God's  retributive 
judgments  in  the  age  of  Jeremiah,  they  can  deliberately  and 
defiantly  plead  that  "  they  are  delivered  to  do  all  these  abomi- 
nations.* 

*  WHEWELL  on  the  Elements   of  losopher  and  the   Christian  moralist 

Morality,    sec.    108,    109,    522,    524.  viewing  this  gigantic  iniquity  from  a 

"Slavery  is   contrary  to  the   funda-  point  outside  its  personal  sweep,  uni- 

mental  principles  of  morality."  Again,  ting  in  its  abhorrence  and  condemna- 

"  Slavery  is  utterly  abhorrent  to  the  tion.    "  A  chained  slave  for  a  porter,1' 

essence  of  morality,  and  can  not  be  says  Hume,    "was  usual   at   Rome, 

looked  upon  as  a  tolerable  condition  Had  not  these  people  shaken  off  all 

of  society,  nor  acquiesced  in  as  what  sense  of  compassion  towards  that  un- 

may  allowably  be.    "Wherever  slavery  happy   part  of  their  species,    would 

exists  its  abolition  must  be  one  of  they  have  presented  their  friends,  at 

the  greatest  objects  of  every  good  their  first  entrance,  with  such  au  im- 

man,    522,    529.      Compare    HUME,  age  of  severity  of  the  masters  and 

Populousness  of  Ancient  Nations.    It  misery   of   the    slaves  ?"      But    this 

is  interesting  to  note  the  infidel  phi-  searedness  and  stupidity  of  the  moral 


DEPRAVITY    OF   UNJUST   POWER.  459 

Burke  somewhere  speaks  with  contempt  of  the  "  exploded 
fanatics  of  slavery,"  who  believed  in  its  indefeasible  right. 
The  career  of  slavery  in  this  country,  and  the  insolent  shame- 
lessness  with  which  its  doctrines  of  devils  are  intruded  on 
mankind,  to  the  corruption  of  all  religion  and  confusion  of  all 
morals,  would  have  been  a  fit  subject  for  Burke's  powerful 
denunciations.  There  would  be  no  danger  of  exaggeration 
in  the  description  of  this  system,  and  of  its  effect  upon  so- 
ciety, and  of  the  reign  of  terror  under  which  it  must  inevita- 
bly bring  the  whole  community,  for  the  support  of  those  in 
power,  who  are  the  personal  managers  and  leaders  of  so  inso- 
lent and  savage  a  despotism,  the  known  policy  of  which  is 
"  to  destroy  the  tribunal  of  conscience,  and  bring  to  their 
lanterne  every  citizen  whom  they  suspect  to  be  discontented 
by  their  tyranny."* 

When  the  possession  of  power  obtained  by  such  means, 
and  resting  on  such  personal  robbery  and  destruction  of  hu- 
man rights,  is  made  the  interest  of  a  great  party,  and  the  ex- 
pediency and  even  sanctity  of  the  system  of  cruelty  and 
wrong  are  maintained  for  the  sake  of  political  supremacy,  for 
the  sake  of  wielding  the  patronage  and  dividing  the  emolu- 
ments of  the  government  of  a  great  nation,  the  corruption  of 
such  a  party  must  be  deep,  rapid  and  frightful,  to  a  degree 
never  yet  demonstrated  in  history.  The  depravity  of  men, 
the  violence  of  their  passions,  and  the  moral  atrocity  of  their 
principles,  will  be  developed,  along  with  the  haughtiness  and 
holiness  of  their  professions,  as  in  a  hot-house  ;  for  religion 
itself,  in  the  most  insolent  hypocrisy,  goes  side  by  side  with 
this  system  of  the  moral  assassination  of  millions,  and  is  even 
its  pretended  foundation  to  the  glory  of  God.  The  party  so 
supported  must,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  and  by  a  moral 

sense  were  pardonable  in  comparison  of  this  system  by  the  Christian  relig- 

with  the  defiance  of  God  and  of  com-  ion. 

mon     humanity,     involved     in     the  *  BURKE'S  works,  vol.  3.    Letter  to 

attempted  justification   and   sanction  a  Member  of  the  National  Assembly. 


460  SACRIFICE   OF   STATE   EIGHTS. 

necessity  arising  out  of  its  position,  and  its  means  of  perma- 
nence in  power,  be  a  party  radically  regardless  of  justice,  and 
ready,  in  any  emergency,  to  set  precedents  of  cruelty  and 
oppression  in  the  place  of  law,  and  to  contrive  a  machinery 
of  government,  with  inquisitorial  committees  of  Congress, 
armed  with  powers,  and  clamps  of  federal  legislation,  breaking 
down,  one  after  another,  every  State  right,  every  personal 
protection,  all  remnant  of  State  sovereignty,  by  the  sheer  des- 
potism of  party  organization  ;  each  individual  being  animated 
with  the  spirit  of  a  slaveholder  towards  all  who  oppose  the 
sin  which  is  the  life  and  soul  of  such  a  usurpation.  Let  this 
insolent  domination  be  extended  to  the  pulpit  and  the  free- 
dom of  the  word  of  God,  and  all  that  has  ever  been  recorded 
of  Star  Chamber  tyranny  in  Great  Britain  would  be  trifling 
in  comparison  with  the  consequences  of  the  erection  of  that 
lynch  law,  that  now  triumphs  in  the  slave  States,  into  a  sys- 
tematic politico-ecclesiastical  tribunal  at  the  North,  under  the 
plea  of  peace,  piety,  and  the  salvation  of  the  Union.  To  this 
extreme  things  are  rapidly  tending,  and  men,  whose  daily 
boast  is  of  liberty,  are  forging  their  own  fetters,  and  burning 
incense  to  this  Moloch.  They  know  not  what  they  are  pre- 
paring for  themselves  and  for  their  children.* 

"  The  Romans,"  said  Fisher  Ames,  on  a  memorable  occa- 
sion, endeavoring  to  warn  his  countrymen,  "  were  not  only 
amused,  but  really  made  vain,  by  the  boast  of  their  liberty, 
while  they  sweated  and  trembled  under  the  despotism  of  em- 
perors, the  most  odious  monsters  that  ever  infested  the  earth. 
It  is  remarkable  that  Cicero,  with  all  his  dignity  and  good 
sense,  found  it  a  popular  seasoning  of  his  harangue,  six  years 

*  BURKE  on  the  Democratic  Tyr-  often  must ;  and  that  oppression  of 

anny.     Works,  vol.  iii.,  p.  146.     "In  the  minority  will  extend  to  far  greater 

a  democracy  the  majority  of  the  cil-  numbers,  and  will  be  carried  on  with 

izens  is  capable   of   exercising    the  much  greater  fury,  thau   con  almost 

most  cruel  oppressions  upon  the  mi-  ever   be   apprehended   from    the   do- 

nority,  whenever  strong  divisions  pre-  minion  of  a  single  scepter." 
vail  in  that  kind  of  policy,  as  they 


DESPOTISM   OF   THE    OLIGAECHT.  461 

after  Julius  Caesar  had  established  the  monarchy,  and  only 
six  months  before  Octavius  totally  subverted  the  common- 
wealth, to  say  that  it  was  not  possible  for  the  people  of  Rome 
to  be  slaves,  whom  the  gods  had  destined  to  the  command  of 
all  nations.  Other  nations  may  endure  slavery,  but  the  proper 
end  and  business  of  the  Roman  people  is  liberty."*  Such  is 
the  rhetoric,  such  the  music  and  the  melody,  such  the  flattery 
and  fawning,  with  which  to-day  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  offering  their  wrists  for  manacles  to  the  despotism 
of  a  more  odious  and  dreadful  oligarchy  than  ever  ruled  in 
Greece  or  Rome ;  the  despotism  of  three  hundred  thousand 
slaveholders,  who  hold  twenty  million  whites  in  bondage, 
through  the  enslavement  of  four  million  blacks. 

*  AMES'  "Works,  Dangers  of  American  Liberty. 


CHAPTER    XLII  . 

APPEAL  OF  THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT. — BEGUN  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. — COMPLETED  is 
THE  NEW. — DREADFUL  CONSEQUENCES  or  ITS  DENIAL. — ATROCITIES  OF  SLAVERY  AND 
SLAVE  LAW  UNDER  TUB  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 

THE  moral  argument  from  Scripture  on  this  subject  appeals 
to  the  common  conscience  of  all  mankind,  and  at  every  step 
enlists  the  common  sense  of  humanity  in  its  behalf.  The  de- 
fense of  slavery  has  to  be  undertaken  and  pursued  against 
conscience,  against  benevolence,  against  law,  natural  and  di- 
vine, against  history,  against  both  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
Scriptures,  against  the  Old  and  New  Testament  theology, 
against  the  gospel,  against  God.  The  consentaneousness  of 
both  parts  of  divine  revelation  on  this  subject,  in  condemna- 
tion of  this  crime,  is  perfect ;  and  it  is  an  incidental  proof  of  di- 
vine revelation,  when  an  article  of  morality,  conveyed  at  first 
through  the  medium  of  the  social  life  of  a  particular  nation, 
divinely  arranged  for  that  purpose,  passes,  on  the  dropping 
away  of  the  letter  of  that  law,  into  a  higher  universal  life  and 
energy  for  all  mankind,  for  all  nations,  as  the  ripe  fruit  hangs 
upon  the  tree  after  the  blossoms  have  vanished,  after  the 
leaves  have  disappeared,  What  the  law  severely  and  inex- 
orably forbade  in  the  Old  Testament,  the  Christian  life  of  the 
New  renders  impossible  to  a  pure  Christianity  and  to  all  good 
men.  What  the  law  enjoined  of  love  to  the  stranger,  the 
gospel  takes  up  as  belonging,  in  Christ,  from  each  to  all,  from 
all  to  one  another,  as  one  family  in  him  ;  and  the  law  of  the 
spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  accomplishes,  by  spontaneous 


THE   LAW    AND   THE    SPIRIT.  463 

Christian  love,  what  the  letter  of  the  antique  law  could  only 
indicate  and  command.* 

If  on  this  point  the  morality  of  the  New  Testament  were 
inferior  to  that  of  the  Old,  while  on  every  other  point  it  is  su- 
perior ;  if  on  this  point  the  divine  standard  were  changed  ;  if 
there  could  be  such  mutability  in  the  elements  of  justice  and  the 
requisitions  of  benevolence  ;  if,  when  the  preparatory  dispensa- 
tion, the  husk,  was  taken  away,  instead  of  disclosing  a  fruit,  it 
revealed  a  poison,  or  a  dry  innutritions  cob,  of  less  worth  than 
the  husk  itself;  this  would  have  been  an  inconsistency  fatal  to 
the  claims  of  a  divine  revelation.  The  argument  of  Paul,  in 
the  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  stakes  the  claims  of  the 
ministry  of  the  New  Testament  on  the  superiority  of  the  gos- 
pel of  the  New  Testament,  as  a  gospel  of  the  Spirit,  every- 
where and  in  every  particular  carrying  the  letter  into  life. 
The  old  glory  of  the  letter  was  to  be  done  away,  because  the 
new  ministration  of  the  Spirit,  promised  by  it,  growing  out 
of  it,  and  perfecting  it,  far  exceeded  it  in  glory,  as  a  min- 
istration of  righteousness,  and  not  of  law  merely,  but  of  the 
fulfillment  of  the  law,  by  the  glorious  energy  of  the  spiritual 
life. 

If  now  the  life,  instead  of  transfiguring  the  letter,  itistead 
of  throwing  back  a  divine  radiance  of  love  upon  it,  in  which 
its  intended  and  prophetic  glory  might  be  visible,  had  fallen 
below  it,  had  come  short  of  it,  this  would  have  been  a  fatal 
failure  and  contradiction ;  much  more,  if  in  any  important 
particular  the  divine  announcement  of  the  letter  had  been 
falsified,  abrogated  or  repealed  in  the  life  ;  much  more,  if  the 
life  had  taken  up  into  itself,  as  part  and  parcel  of  its  own  piety, 
a  practice  which  the  letter  had  distinctly,  and  for  all  mankind, 

*  GRANVILLE   SHARPE.      Law  of  argument    with    great    accuracy  of 

Retribution   against    Tyrants,    Slave-  learning  and  acuteness  and  power  of 

holders  and  Oppressors,  pp.  6,  319.  reasoning.     At  the  same  time  an  ap- 

In  this  admirable  volume  the  benev-  plication,  irresistible  for  its  pungency 

olent  author  presses  the  Old  Testa-  and  faithfulness,  is  made  to  the  con- 

ment  historical   and  legal  Scripture  science. 


464  WORST   CORRUPTIONS    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

condemned,  ns  involving  a  guilt,  and  constituting  a  crime, 
equal  to  that  of  murder. 

It  is  not  possible,  therefore,  adequately  to  describe  the  mis- 
chief and  misery  inflicted  on  Christianity  by  the  assertion  that 
the  gospel  sanctions  slavery.  It  is  inevitably  a  destruction  of 
the  evidence  of  divine  revelation.  This  horrible  corruption 
of  Christianity  in  modern  times  concentrates  the  abominations 
of  all  earlier  corruptions.  Prideaux  says,  "It  may  almost  raise 
a  doubt  whether  the  benefit  which  the  world  receives  from 
government  be  sufficient  to  make  amends  for  the  calamities 
which  it  suffers  from  the  follies  and  maladministrations  of  those 
that  manage  it."  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  iniquity 
and  madness  of  those  who  are  undertaking  to  manage  the 
Christianity  of  the  gospel  as  a  slaveholding  Christianity.  It  is 
a  virulent  practical  infidelity,  sustained  by  crime.  They  who 
support  such  a  Christianity  are  the  infidels ;  and  they  who 
deny  it  are  the  believers,  they  who  deny  and  reject  with  scorn 
and  hatred  such  a  libel  against  God,  such  a  monstrous  perver- 
sion of  His  Word,  and  cleave  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
law  and  gospel.* 

*  DYMOXD,  Essays  on  Morality,  ch.  a  right  to  be  free,  that  \ve  ought  to 

xviii.     "  Whether  it  is  consistent  with  demand  freedom.     JUSTICE  AND  LIB- 

the  Christian  law  for  one  man  to  keep  ERTY  HAVE  NEITHER  BIRTH  NOR  RACE, 

another  in  bondage  without  his  con-  YOUTH  NOR  AGE." 

sent,  and  to  compel  him  to  labor  for  Compare  GISBORNE,  on  the  natural 

that  other's  advantage,  admits  of  no  right  to  freedom,  as  constituted  of  God. 

more  doubt   than  whether  two  and  A  striking  passage  from  Gisborne  is 

two  make  four.     It  were  humiliating,  quoted  in  DEWAR'S  Moral  Philosophy, 

then,  to  set  about  the  proof  that  the  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  defending  the 

slave    system    is    incompatible   with  Missionary  Smith,  so  persecuted  for  his 

Christianity,  because   no   man   ques-  opinions  against  slavery  in  the  West 

tions  its  incompatibility,  who  knows  Indies,  referred  to  Dr.  Johnson.    "  Mr. 

what  Christianity  is,  and  what  it  re-  Smith  has  expressed  the  opinion  that 

quires." — 387.     Compare  WHEWELL,  slavery  never  could  be  mitigated,  but 

on  the   immorality   of  slavery.  (Ele-  must  die  a  violent  death.    These  opin- 

ments,  Vol.  1,)  and  MACKINTOSH  on  ions  the  honorable  gentleman-  calls 

the  natural  right  of  freedom,  Works,  fanatical.     Does  he  think  Dr.  Johnson 

Yol.  3,  138.     "  It  is  not  because  we  a  fanatic,  a  sectary,  or  Methodist,  or 

have  been  free,  but  because,  we  have  an  enemy  to  established  authority  ? 


MORALITY   OF   THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.  465 

Now  to  suppose  that  while  the  letter  of  the  Old  Testament 
was  against  the  relation  of  slavery  or  slaveholding,  and  re- 
quired its  abolition,  the  spirit  of  the  New  sanctioned  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  relation,  and  only  forbade  its  abuse,  would  be 
to  degrade  the  moral  standard  of  the  New  below  that  of  the 
Old.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  by  the  very  letter  of  the 
law,  "  He  that  stealeth  a  man  and  selleth  him,  or  if  he  be 
found  in  his  hands,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death,"  the  rela- 
tion of  slaveholding,  as  a  relation  in  and  by  which  a  human 
being  is  claimed  as  property  and  treated  as  merchandise,  is 
sinful  in  itself;  whether  designated  as  a  civil  or  a  moral  rela- 
tion, it  is  immoral  and  unjust,  and  contrary  to  God's  law,  in 
and  by  itself.  And  this  letter  of  the  law  is  defined,  repre- 
sented, illustrated  and  applied,  by  the  prophets,  by  the  moral 
teachings  of  the  Old  Testament  in  various  forms,  and  the 
spirit  in  the  New  Testament  is  demonstrated  as  conforrnable 
to  the  letter  in  the  Old,  sustaining  it  in  every  part,  and  carry- 
ing into  practice  its  extreme  meaning  as  its  right  meaning. 

What  then  shall  be  said  of  the  modern  defenders  of  slavery, 
who  set  the  New  Testament  against  the  Old,  and  hesitate  not 
to  declare  that  Christ  and  the  apostles  would  not  abolish 
slavery  because  it  was  a  civil  established  relation,  not  to  be  in- 
terfered with  by  the  gospel,  but  just  and  right !  And  whereas 
Christ  declared  that  he  came  not  to  impugn  or  destroy  the 
law,  but  to  fulfill,  they  do,  in  this  important  respect,  in  an  ar- 
ticle of  common  morality,  appeal  to  Christ's  authority  against 
the  law,  maintaining  that  to  be  just  and  righteous,  under  the 
gospel,  which  by  and  under  the  law  was  the  extremest  injustice 
and  wrong. 

But  after  having  thus  maintained  that  the  relation  of  slave- 
But  he  must  know,  from  the  most  deliberate  wish  for  an  event  so  full  of 
amusing  of  books,  that  Johnson  pro-  horror,  but  merely  to  express  in  the 
posed  as  a  toast  at  Oxford,  Success  to  strongest  manner  his  honest  hatred  of 
the  first  revolt  of  negroes  in  the  "West  slavery." — MACKINTOSH'S  Works,  3, 
Indies.  He  neither  meant  to  make  a  405. 
jest  of  such  matters,  nor  to  express  a 


466  DELATION    OF   SLAVEHOLDING   SINFUL. 

holding  is  in  itself  right,  they  also  argue,  with  singular  incon- 
sistency, that  Christ  and  the  apostles  left  it  to  be  done  away 
by  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  by  the  spirit  of  Christianity  in  its 
onward  march  and  development.  But  how  can  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  be  against  a  relation  and  a  practice  which  in  it- 
self is  not  wrong,  and  if  not  wrong,  then  certainly  just  and 
right  ?  If  the  letter  of  Christianity  is  not  against  slavery, 
then  its  spirit  is  not.  If  the  spirit  of  Christianity  is  bound 
to  abolish  slavery,  it  is  because  the  law  of  Christianity  rep- 
robates and  forbids  it.  And  if  the  spirit  of  Christianity  can 
abolish  slavery,  it  can  only  be  by  going  in  God's  name  and 
authority  against  it,  by  employing  God's  word  against  it. 
The  Bible,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  is  a  continuous  line 
of  living  fire  against  this  iniquity.  The  denunciations  of  it 
are  the  more  terrible  and  sweeping,  because  not  only  the  orig- 
inal edict  described  the  crime  as  parallel  with  murder,  but  all 
its  elements  in  turn,  and  the  crimes  resulting  from  it,  are  de- 
nounced in  the  same  dreadful  manner  ;  so  that,  in  the  whole- 
sale, and  in  particular,  the  application  is  indisputable,  and  the 
power  indefeasible  and  immeasurable.  It  only  needs  that  the 
church  and  ministry  should  make  use  of  this  power,  and 
slavery  would  speedily  be  swept  from  existence. 

But  in  our  insane  defence  of  slavery  we  render  it  necessary 
either  to  pervert  and  corrupt  both  the  law  and  the  gospel,  or 
to  forbid  their  utterance,  to  silence  the  church  and  the  min- 
istry on  this  subject,  to  muzzle  the  pulpit,  and  spike  the  word 
of  God.  What  one  of  the  purest  and  most  eloquent  of  our 
country's  early  patriots  predicted  On  another  occasion,*  by 
this  madness  "  we  make  what  is  called  law  an  assassin,  we  cut 
asunder  what  law  ought  to  protect,  and  teach  the  people  to 
scoff  at  their  morals,  and  to  unlearn  their  education  to  virtue." 
The  debasement  of  character  becomes  universal  when  men 
are  compelled  to  cut  and  square  the  very  teachings  of  God  to 
meet  the  imperious  demands  of  a  detestable  institution,  which 
*  FISHEE  AMES.  Works.  Dangers  of  American  Liberty. 


TESTIMONY    OF    HUMBOLDT.  467 

being  in  itself  sin  and  inhumanity,  requires  the  disavowal  of  all 
that  is  holy  and  human  in  its  supporters,  and  for  their  safety 
renders  essential  the  abridgement  of  the  freedom  of  speech 
both  in  the  pulpit  and  in  social  life.  Men  submissive  to 
these  vices  teach  their  consciences  the  art  of  defending  them. 

The  celebrated  Humboldt,  in  the  course  of  his  investiga- 
tions in  the  regions  of  the  Spanish  wars  and  conquests  in 
America,  discovered  a  document  in  the  will  of  the  great 
Cortez,  which,  he  says,  is  worthy  of  preservation  and  promul- 
gation to  mankind.*  Speaking  of  his  slaves,  in  the  thirty- 
ninth  and  forty-fii'st  articles  of  his  testament,  Cortez  adds  the 
following  memorable  words :  "  As  it  is  doubtful  if  a  Chris- 
tian can.  conscientiously  employ  as  slaves  Indians  who  have 
been  made  prisoners  of  war,  and  as  this  point  has  never  been 
rightly  cleared  up  till  this  day,  I  order  my  son,  Don  Martin, 
and  those  of  his  descendants  who  shall  possess  my  property 
after  me,  to  take  every  possible  information  as  to  the  rights 
which  may  be  legally  exercised  towards  prisoners.  The  na- 
tives who  have  been  forced  to  yield  personal  service  ought  to 
be  indemnified,  if  it  shall  be  decided  that  those  personal  ser- 
vices ought  not  to  have  been  demanded."  Humboldt  adds  to 
this  testimony  the  following  sarcastic  words  :  "  We  must  own 
that  three  centuries  later,  notwithstanding  the  civilization  of 
a  more  enlightened  age,  the  rich  proprietors  in  America  have 
less  timorous  consciences  even  on  a  death  bed.  In  our  days 
it  is  not  the  devotees  but  the  philosophers  who  call  in  ques- 
tion the  justice  of  slavery."! 

But  the  law  of  nature  and  of  nations  denounces  it,  as  well 
as  the  Word  of  God,  affirming  that  slavery  stands  wholly  and 

*  HUMEOLDT,  Kingdom  of  New  lowing  preamble :  "  Seeing  that  in  the 

Spain,  Vol.  I.,  B.  2.,  ch.  vii.  beginning  God  made  all  men  by  na- 

•j-  THIERRY,  History  of  the  Nor-  ture  free,  but  afterwards  the  law  of 

mon  Conquest,  sec.  5,  293,  refers  to  nations  brought  some  of  them  under 

similar  testimonies.  On  the  approach  the  yoke  of  slavery,  we  believe  it 

of  death  those  that  held  serfs  in  would  be  pious  and  meritorious  in  the 

slavery  repented  of  it  as  a  thing  dis-  sight  of  God  to  liberate  such  persona 

pleasing  to  God.  Deeds  of  emanci-  to  us  subjected.  Know,  therefore, 

pation  were  drawn  up  with  the  fbl-  that  we  have  freed  and  liberated  from 


468  LAW    OF   NATURE   AND   NATIONS. 

solely  upon  force  against  right,  and  being  contrary  to  nature, 
it  follows  that  every  moment  that  it  is  maintained,  the  relation 
so  continued  is  an  ever  new  and  active  violation  of  the  law  of 
nature.  It  is  on  this  ground  mainly  that  the  principle  is  so 
strongly  stated  in  Coke  upon  the  laws  of  England,*  that  a 
man  is  to  be  regarded  as  impious  and  cruel  who  is  not  in  favor 
of  liberty  as  against  slavery,  and  that  the  common  law  in  all 
cases  gives  the  right  to  liberty.  When  we  think  of  a  practice 
thus  denounced  by  the  law  of  nature  and  of  nations  as  a  cruel 
and  impious  violation  of  nature,  passing  into  a  habit  of  life, 
and  being  claimed  as  a  right  of  property  and  possession  by 
Christians,  by  those  who,  in  addition  to  the  law  of  nature  and 
of  nations,  have  the  law  of  God  for  their  guide,  we  may  cease 
to  wonder  at  the  debasing  and  terrible  eifect  of  such  cruelty 
and  injustice  on  the  character  of  those  who  persist  in  it  as 
sanctioned  by  the  gospel.  The  testimony  of  Hume  is  striking. 
"  The  little  humanity  commonly  observed  in  persons  accus- 
tomed from  their  infancy  to  exercise  so  great  authority  over 
their  fellow-men,  and  to  trample  upon  human  nature,  were 
sufficient  alone  to  disgust  us  with  such  unbounded  dominion. 
Nor  can  a  more  probable  reason  be  assigned  for  the  severe,  I 
might  say  barbarous,  manners  of  ancient  times,  than  the  prac- 
tice of  domestic  slavery,  by  which  every  man  of  rank  was 
rendered  a  petty  tyrant,  and  educated  amidst  the  flattery, 
submission  and  low  debasement  of  his  slaves."f  In  such  a 
case,  the  higher  they  rose,  the  lower  he  descended  ;  the  more 
intelligent  and  valuable  they  were,  and  the  greater  the  crowd 
of  them,  the  worse  the  character  of  the  master,  who,  as  their 
owner,  had  illimitable  power  over  them,  to  use  them  at  his 

all  yoke  of  servitude  these  our  knaves,  SMYTH,   Lect.    Mod.   Hist.   Laws    of 

them  and  all  their  children,  born  or  Louis  IX.,  Vol.  L,  110. 

to  be  born."  •{•  HUME'S  Essays.    Populousness  of 

*  COKE   upon  Lyttleton.     Common  Ancient  Nations.  Compare  JEFFERSON 

Law  is  Common   Right.      Impius  et  on  Virginia,  and  BECKER,  Charicles, 

crudelis  judicandus  est,  qui  libertati  Exc.  Slaves;    and  Gallus,  The  Slave 

non  fa  vet.      Nostra  jura  in  omni  casu,  Family.     Also,  BLAIR'S  Inquiry,  148.  . 

libertati    dant    favorem.      See    also  • 


A   BLACKER   GUILT   THAN    MUEDEK.  469 

will,  for  his  gain  or  pleasure.  The  French  historian  of  slavery 
has  described  in  an  impressive  passage  the  corruption  of  morals 
in  the  free  classes  of  society  in  Greece  and  Rome  in  conse- 
quence of  the  habits  of  slavery,  and  the  excitement  and  accu- 
mulation of  human  depravity  under  such  opportunities  of 
unrestrained  indulgence  of  the  passions.*  "  To  carry  this 
depravity  to  the  highest  pitch,  there  was  only  needed  in  the 
bosom  of  society  a  creature  like  a  man,  but  divested  by  opin- 
ion of  all  moral  obligations  proclaimed  by  the  human  conscience 
or  predicated  upon  it.  A  being  whom  they  could  turn  to  vice 
as  to  virtue  without  outraging  his  nature,  in  whom  all  ex- 
cesses were  lawful  the  moment  they  were  commanded  by  his 
owner.  Such  a  being  was  a  slave,  and  such  depravity  did  not 
hesitate  to  use  him  for  its  purposes."  For  the  details  of  the 
demonstration  of  such  depravity,  the  very  museums  of  an- 
tiquity, as  well  as  the  Roman  satirists,  are  open  to  us.f 

When  to  all  this  there  is  added  the  frightful  consideration 
that  slavery  propagates  a  posterity  in  its  own  likeness,  that  it 
secures  a  system  and  a  supply  increasing  and  pei'petual  of 
such  depravities  and  subjects  of  depravity,  we  understand  the 
grounds  of  the  Divine  wrath  against  it.  We  can  understand 
also  how  a  writer  like  Mr.  Coleridge,  a  consummate  master 
of  language  and  logic,  the  logic  of  living  principles,  and  ac- 
customed to  philosophical  precision  as  well  as  power  of  imagi- 
nation in  the  dress  of  thought,  should  have  set  down  slavery 
as  of  blacker  guilt  than  either  rapine  or  murder.J  Blacker 
guilt,  because  a  fountain  guilt ;  because  it  is  "  the  raising  up 
of  the  foundations  of  many  generations"  in  cruelty,  in  adultery, 
in  robbery  and  moral  assassination.  Blacker  guilt,  because 
neither  fraud  nor  murder,  when  committed  on  the  first  victim, 
are  consolidated  into  a  system  and  ratified  and  protected  by 
law,  and  made  just  and  holy  for  the  second  generation  of 

*  WALLON.     Histoire  d'Esclavage,  cicnt  Nations,  "Works,  Vol.  Ill,  and 

Vol.  II.  Compare  STROUD,  Slave  Laws.  THOLUCK,  Moral  Influence  of  Ilcath- 

f  BECKER.      Charicles  and  Callus,  enism. 

the    Slave,  and    the    Slave    Family.  \  See   THE   FRIEND,   Essay   8,   or 

Compare  HUME,  Populousness  of  An-  COLERIDGE'S  Works,  Vol.  III. 


470  LEGALIZED   BANDITTI. 

murderers  upon  the  second  generation  of  their  victims.* 
Blacker  guilt,  because  neither  fraud  nor  murder  are  perpet- 
uated by  propagation,  with  the  law  that  the  children  of  the 
robbed  and  murdered  follow  the  condition  of  their  robbed 
and  murdered  parents,  and  are  to  be  themselves  legitimately 
robbed  and  murdered  by  right  of  descent,  by  necessity  of  the 
law  of  slave  generation,  partus  sequitur  ventrem.  Blacker  guilt 
than  either  murder  or  rapine,  because  while  rapine  and  murder 
finish  their  work  with  their  present  victims,  slavery  retains  those 
victims  for  the  breeding  of  the  crime,  and  by  means  of  the  steal- 
ing of  babes  passes  the  crime  to  a  new  generation  under  the 
form  and  assumption  of  virtue,  social  habit,,  piety  and  law  ! 

And  therefore  has  Coleridge  declared  that  the  agitating 
truths  with  which  Thomas  Clarkson,  and  his  excellent  con- 
federates, the  Quakers,  fought  and  conquered  the  LEGALIZED 
BANDITTI  OF  MEN-STEALERS,  the  numerous  and  powerful  per- 
petrators and  advocates  of  slavery,  are  to  be  at  all  hazards  re- 
published  with  a  voice  of  alarm  and  impassioned  warning. 
"Truths  of  this  kind  being  indispensable  to  man,  considered 
as  a  moral  being,  are  above  all  expedience,  all  accidental  conse- 
quences ;  for  as  sure  as  God  is  holy,  and  man  immortal,  there 
can  be  no  evil  so  great  as  the  ignorance  or  disregard  of  them." 

CONCLUSION. 

The  necessity  for  the  repromulgation  of  these  truths,  and 
of  the  battle  with  them  against  slavery  by  the  Word  of  God, 
is  increasing  every  day  and  hour  in  the  United  States,  as  a 
necessity  of  our  own  life  and  freedom.  We  arc  under  the 

*  DYMOND.     Essays  on   Morality,  even  if  the  parents  had  been  rightfully 

ch.   xviii.,   388.     "  The  sufferer  has  slaves,  it   would  not  justify  mo  in 

just  as  valid  a  claim  to  liberty  at  my  making  slaves  of  their  children." 

hands  as  at  the  hands  of  the  ruffian  Compare  WIIEWELL,   Elemeut-5  of 

who  first  dragged  him  from  his  home.  Morality.      "  In  the  eye  of  morality 

Every  hour  of  every  day  the  present  all  men  are  brothers,  and  the  crime 

possessor  is  guilty  of  injustice.    Nor  of  maintaining  slavery  is  the  crime  of 

is  the  case  altered  with  respect  to  making  or  keeping  a  brother  a  slave." 

those  born  on  a  man's  estate.    Nay,  Whewell  presents  in  a  most  impres- 


ASSASSINATION   OF   A  RACE.  47 1 

pressure  of  the  rapidly  advancing  judgment  of  God,  in  that 
question,  "  If  ye  have  not  been  faithful  in  that  which  is  an- 
other man's,  who  shall  give  you  that  which  is  your  own?" 
The  crime  and  guilt  of  slavery  are  becoming  frightfully  exas- 
perated in  atrocity,  and  complicated,  by  the  laws  of  the  free 
States  against  the  negro  race,  and  by  the  new  statutes  of  slave 
States,  ordering  the  sale  of  free  negroes  as  slaves,  on  penalty 
of  quitting  the  State  by  such  a  time  specified. 

The  horrible  inhumanity  and  iniquity  created  and  enforced 
by  the  slave  laws  of  this  country,  and  burned  into  the  col- 
ored race,  generation  after  generation,  by  decisions  entitled 
justice,  are  never  more  painfully  apparent  than  when  brought 
in  contrast  with  the  maxims  of  English  and  Common  Law  in 
regard  to  liberty.  By  law,  in  South  Carolina,  it  is  always 
presumed  that  every  negro  and  mulatto  is  a  slave,  unless 
the  contrary  be  made  to  appear,  and  the  burden  of 
proof  is  on  the  poor  creature  claimed  as  a  slave.  "  The 
wretch  who,  by  art  or  force,  is  enabled  to  claim  him  as  a 
slave,  is  exempted  from  the  necessity  of  making  any  proof 
how  he  obtained  him,  the  unhappy  person  said  to  be  a  slave 
being  presumed  to  be  so  by  the  law  of  the  land!"  Chief 
Justice  Taylor,  of  North  Carolina,  charged,  in  the  case  Gobu 
vs.  Gobu,  as  correct,  "  the  presumption  of  every  black  per- 
son being  a  slave."  "It  is  so,"  said  he,  "  because  the  negroes 
originally  brought  into  this  country  were  slaves,  and  their  de- 
scendants must  continue  slaves."  In  1740,  it  was  enacted  in 
South  Carolina,  "  That  all  negroes  and  mulattoes,  who  now 
are,  or  shall  hereafter  be  in  this  province,  and  all  their  issue 
and  offspring,  born  or  to  be  b'orn,  shall  be,  and  they  are  hereby 
declared  to  be,  and  remain  for  ever  hereafter,  absolute  slaves, 
and  shall  follow  the  condition  of  the  mother."* 

sivo  light  the  monstrosity,  and  awful  wrongs,  lest  it  should  be   supposed 

moral  consequences,  of  maintaining  that  as  he  may  do  a  wrong,  he  may 

slavery,  on  the  pretence  that  the  negro  suffer  one."     Ch.  xxiv.,  v.  1. 

is  not  of  the  human  family.     "  Even  *  STROUD'S   Slave    Laws,    ch.   h'L, 

his  crimes  are  not  acknowledged  as  122-130.     Compare  WAI.LOX,   Hist. 


472  JUDGMENT  IN   THE   OTIIER   WORLD. 

With  this  atrocious  doctrine  of  presumption  against  liberty 
there  is  held  forth  a  perpetual  bounty  on  the  crime  of  man- 
stealing,  and  between  law  and  custom  there  arises  a  compli- 
cation of  wickedness,  as  the  habit  of  society  in  a  slave  State, 
which  is  frightful  to  consider,  and  for  the  description  or  sen- 
,  tence  of  which  no  language  of  reprobation  can  be  too  strong. 

And  here  are  Christian  States,  so  called,  deliberately  enacting 
the  very  crime  of  kidnapping,  which  the  government  of  our 
country  has  branded  as  piracy,  and  has  forbidden  in  Africa,  or 
on  the  high  seas,  on  pain  of  death.  Though  the  criminals  are 
never  punished,  yet  the  law  stands.  And  now  that  very  crime 
of  man-stealing,  which  the  government  denounces  as  piracy,  and 
which  God  has  condemned  in  the  individual  as  equivalent  with 
murder,  is  adopted  by  the  State,  and  commanded  and  com- 
mitted by  law,  as  an  article  of  State  policy  !  Such  is  the  latest 
form  and  exasperation  of  this  sweeping  and:  remorseless  iniquity. 

This  State  and  corporate  crime  drives  many  poor  creatures 
into  the  shame  and  misery  of  selling  themselves  into  slaveiy, 
or  permitting  themselves  to  be  made  slaves,  though  sensible 
that  in  so  doing  they  give  themselves  up  to  the  will  and  ma- 
chinery of  the  system  and  its  managers,  to  make  slaves  not 
only  of  them  but  of  their  posterity.  The  crime  and  its  dread- 
ful consequences  are  increased  immeasurably  by  the  fatal 
brand  imprinted  on  the  children.  The  Christian  State  com- 
pels the  man  to  constitute  himself  the  head  of  a  system  of 
adultery  and  cruelty  extending  to  his  children  and  his  chil- 
dren's children.  The  seller  of  himself  as  a  slave  inflicts  the 
same  oppression  and  misery  on  those  who  come  after  him. 
But  those  who  compel  him  into  this  horrible  choice,  and  those 
who  defend  the  infinitely  dreadful  system,  will  bear  their  judg- 
ment in  the  other  world. 

State  of  the  Slave  under  Law,  and  Becker,  Hume  and  others,  are  almost 
STEPHENS,  of  the  Slave  under  Colonial  innocent  in  comparison  with  the  same 
Law.  The  atrocities  of  Grecian  and  every  day  being  practised  in  Chris- 
Roman  Slavery,  as  drawn  out  in  Blair,  tian  America. 


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